Your future, our focus
Team Hosts Rocky JV
The collegiate volleyball season got off to a shaky start for Northwest College over the weekend as the team dropped all four of its games at the College of Southern Idaho tournament. The Trappers lost 3-0 to No. 1 Southern Idaho, No. 7 Salt Lake and unranked Snow College. The Trappers fell by a 3-1 count to Utah State University- Eastern (formerly Eastern Utah).
“When you come home from a tournament 0-4, that’s not good,” said Trapper head coach Shaun Pohlman. “We didn’t play up to our abillity. That wasn’t our team that was out there this weekend.”
The Trappers fell 25-21, 26- 24, 25-14 to Snow to open the tournament on Friday. They followed with a 25-12, 25-22, 25-14 loss to Southern Idaho that night. Ana Jakovljevic led the way with six kills against top-ranked CSI. Ashlee Ryan added five.
“We had more digs against CSI than we did against Snow, and they weren’t ranked,” said Pohlman. “There was no consistency.
The Trappers’ second day at the tournament started with adversity. Sophomore libero Katie Burnett, the returning stat leader at the position for Region IX volleyball this season, strained a muscle warming up. The injury forced Burnett to miss both of the Trappers’ games on Saturday.
“It was just a crazy, crazy situation,” said Pohlman. “It’s just one of those out of the blue things. I don’t know why it happened. There’s nothing we could do to prevent it. It was really just a freak thing to have happen.
That injury deprived the Trappers of their primary back-row player. Sophomore Allyson Mahon stepped in to fill the libero’s role on the second day of the tournament. It was Mahon’s first time in that role during her collegiate career.
“She did a good job stepping in,” said Pohlman. “We dealt with that adversity fairly well.”
Mahon finished with 30 digs in the Trappers’ 25-22, 25-12, 22-25, 25-21 loss to Utah State- Eastern. Jakovljevic and Felicity Zegarelli each had 11 kills. Becky Downs added seven kills in that contest.
“Thirty digs is really phenomenal for not playing before,” said Pohlman.
The Trappers closed the tournament with a 25-21, 25-17, 25- 11 loss to Salt Lake.
“You can see a trend in our third games,” said Pohlman. “The girls need to develop some grit when they get backed into a corner. We have to grow up and grow up fast.”
Triniti Taylor, the Trappers’ setter, led the team in kills against Salt Lake with five.
“The results this weekend aren’t characteristic of our practices,” said Pohlman. “We’ve had some good practices, but for whatever reason that didn’t transfer over to this weekend. The responsibility is on me and the team to figure out why and to do better.”
The Trappers host Rocky Mountain College’s JV team tonight (Tuesday) at Cabre Gymnasium for the team’s first home action of the season. First serve is scheduled for 7 p.m.