Box Score EPHRAIM, Utah – After five weeks of preseason tournaments, the Snow College Lady Badgers finally got to open volleyball league play Friday night when they hosted the No. 8 ranked Salt Lake Community College Bruins (SLCC) at the Horne Activity Center in Ephraim. The 12th ranked Badgers could not dig themselves out of the hole they put themselves in to start the first two sets and the Bruins took home a big 25-11, 25-16, 22-25, 26-24 win.
The Bruins jumped out to 6-1 and 6-0 leads in the opening sets and never let the Badgers get close in either one. A strong outside hitting game by SLCC and Snow's blocking a little bit off to begin with led to the lopsided Bruin wins in sets 1 and 2.
"We were a bit nervous," said Snow head coach Keven John. "The layoff we had with two weeks to prepare against Salt Lake created too much anticipation, and we didn't respond well at the beginning of the match."
Sophomore Bailee Kendall led the Bruin assault, garnering 22 kills on the night from her outside hitter position. Kendall, a Mt. Pleasant native who prepped at North Sanpete, was the only Bruin who had double figures in either kills or total points.
Set 3 was a different story as the Badgers came out with confidence and jumped to a 4-0 lead themselves. Sophomore
Taylor Castillo gave Snow a big lift off the bench, earning some key service wins and smashing big kills for the final two points of the set.
The fourth set was a barnburner with the large Badger crowd getting more and more rowdy as the set's eight ties and four lead changes unfolded. Snow finally pulled away, building a 24-19 lead. But the Badgers could not get the final point as SLCC's Indigo Allen led seven straight service points to pull out the win.
"We played like ourselves in set three and four," Coach John said. "We obviously need to do a better job of closing out sets, but if we play like we did in the last two sets, we will be fine the rest of the way in conference."
Madi Packard had 10 kills for Snow, with
Brenna DeYoung and
Aly Stephenson each adding eight. Castillo finished with six kills.
Magen Hunter had 10 digs and 27 assists for Snow, with
Delayne Daniels getting 12 digs and Packard adding 10.
Snow, now at 12-5 overall, continues league play this week travelling north to take on North Idaho on Thursday and fourth-ranked College of Southern Idaho on Saturday. The Badgers next play at home when they host Colorado Northwestern on Friday, Oct. 11, and USU-Eastern on Saturday, Oct. 12.
