Eagles Win For Record Crowd Eastern Tops Sacramento State In Key Big Sky Volleyball Match

It was a night of records and nervewracking drama.

But when Sarah Chelbana’s attempted kill grazed the net and skipped out of bounds, the Eastern Washington University volleyball team began its celebration of a 15-10, 16-18, 17-15, 16-18, 16-14 victory over Sacramento State.

A school-record crowd of 1,273 showed up Thursday night for the Big Sky Conference battle on Eastern’s Reese Court and the fans got 3 hours, 10 minutes of long rallies and spirited entertainment.

But if the Eagles (11-3, 4-1 Big Sky) had executed like coach Pam Parks expects from her team, the match never would have gone to a rally-scoring fifth game.

In the fourth game, Eastern was at match point three times, but couldn’t close out the defending Big Sky champion Hornets (6-6, 1-2). Senior setter Kim Maxwell made two critical errors down the stretch when she was called for back-row blocking on two consecutive points. The same story unfolded in the fifth game as Eastern let three more match points slip away before pulling out the victory that likely will decide who will reign supreme in the Big Sky Conference in November.

Eastern was ahead 14-11 in the final game when Sac State tied it on two kills and an Eastern error. Senior leftside hitter Lacey Coover gave the Eagles a 16-15 lead when one of her soft kills caught the Hornets flat-footed.

A Sac State error ended a match that will go down in NCAA Division I history as the match with the third-most points (80) for a five-game match.

Coover’s final kill was indicative of her performance all night. And it did not please Parks.

“We kept telling her to swing. She’s killing me. I’m too old for this,” said Parks, who will step down after this season, her 18th as head coach.

But there were many things Coover and company did that pleased Parks. Coover finished with 17 kills (.158 hitting) and 32 digs, not a shabby number in the defense department. But it was not the best on the team.

That honor belonged to junior outside hitter Angie Hall, whose 39 digs broke a school record (34) set by Coover just last week.

“I did?” was Hall’s reaction when told of her feat. “I had no idea. But tonight was a great battle all the way around.”

Hall also led the team with 22 kills (.222). Junior outside hitter Jennifer Gable was next with 21 (.268) as the Eagles finished hitting .194 on 340 total attacks. Parks also used 14 players in the match, the most dominant of the reserves being freshman Janelle Ruen of Post Falls.

The Hornets, postseason participants in six of the past seven years, had their share of gaudy numbers and broke two NCAA Division I national records for five-game matches.

The team’s 359 total attacks broke a record set by Cincinnati in 1993. Angela Lewis, their talented 5-foot-10 outside hitter, had 110 total kill attempts, breaking a record set by Portland in 1989 and Long Beach State in 1986.

But the visitors would gladly give back the big numbers for another shot at the third game. Much like the first two games, where Sac State jumped to early leads, it found itself ahead 14-8 in the third game.

Eastern crept back as Sac State let seven game points slip away. A clean hit by Angie Hall gave Eastern the game 17-15, and put it ahead in games 2-1.

Nothing came easy for either team as Sac State leveled the match in the fourth game.

“The thing that hurt us tonight was ball control and that’s usually our strength,” said Parks.