HELENA, Mont. -- The Carroll College volleyball team opened the season with a 3-2 loss to Evergreen State College, showing signs of a team playing its first official game of the season.
"I think really just trying to find a lineup that the chemistry is going to remain consistent throughout the match is our biggest focus right now," Saints coach Moe Boyle said.
The Fighting Saints (0-1) were fresh off a five-set match with Montana State on Tuesday evening and were a little slow out of the gate, dropping the first set to Evergreen 25-22.
Similar to a night earlier in exhibition play against the Bobcats, the Saints found their stride later in the match. The Saints bounced back to take convincing second and third games, 25-14 and 25-16.
As it appeared Carroll would put the Geoducks (1-4) away in the fourth game, inconsistency reared its ugly head.
"Really we had it and we lost the momentum and we couldn't pull ourselves out," Boyle said.
The Saints battled and nearly made a remarkable comeback in the fourth game, but eventually fell 25-22.
In the fifth and deciding set, Carroll jumped out to a 7-3 lead, but before the teams switched sides of the court, Evergreen snatched an 8-7 lead.
"Even as good as we got started in the fifth, I think we never really honed in on the focus for the fifth set," Boyle said. "It didn't feel the same as the other games even when we were up 7-3."
An exciting atmosphere of over 500 fans empowered the Saints and nearly propelled them to a victory, but costly errors eventually caught up to the home team. The Saints fell 17-15 to drop their opening match of the season.
"Kudos to Evergreen they brought it tonight," Boyle said. "They played start to finish. We made al lot of errors at the end that we're going to have to correct as the season goes on."
Lexi Mikkelsen,
Taelyr Krantz and
Sophia Spoja each recorded double-digits in the kills department. Mikkelsen led the way with 13.
Spoja also led the Saints with five service aces.
The Saints outhit the Geoducks .169 to .143, recorded more kills and evened the score in errors at 29, but untimely plays undid them.
The Saints now begin a long stretch of games away from the PE Center, starting this weekend in Butte for the Big Sky Challenge. The Saints face the No. 12-ranked College of Idaho at 1 p.m. on Friday and then square off with Northwest (RV) at 5 p.m. later the same day.
