Confident Eagles won’t overlook Northern Arizona at tourney

First things first.

Eastern Washington University would like nothing more than another shot at Big Sky volleyball kingpin Sacramento State at the conference tournament this weekend in Sacramento. However, the third-seeded Eagles (14-14, 12-4 Big Sky) first must deal with No. 6 Northern Arizona (12-14, 7-9) in the opening round Friday at 11:30 a.m.

EWU defeated NAU twice during the regular season, once in five games. The Eagles are coming off a disappointing four-game home loss to Sacramento State on Friday which prevented EWU from a share of the regular-season title. Portland State knocked off Sacramento State on Saturday to earn the top seed in the tournament.

“We’re going into the match pretty confident, but we are not overlooking NAU by any means,” EWU interim coach Irene Matlock said.

If EWU wins, it will face five-time defending champion Sacramento State in the semifinals Friday night. The Eagles and Hornets have played in the last seven tournament title matches with Sacramento State winning six. EWU’s victory came in 2001.

The Eagles won the first game and were well positioned in the second before Sacramento State rallied on Friday. The Hornets cruised in the final two games.

“We got scared, we got intimidated by that time because they’ve been our rivals for 10 years,” said Eagles sophomore Hayley Hills, who is third in the conference at 4.41 kills per game. “After we saw that they could come back and beat us we kind of scared ourselves.”

Hills would welcome a rematch. “We’re going to get them when it counts in the conference tournament,” she said.

Cougars home

Washington State closes the season with home matches against No. 13 Oregon tonight and Oregon State on Friday. WSU (9-21, 0-16) is trying to avoid a winless conference season for the first time since going 0-12 in the NorPac in 1985.

Three seniors will conclude their WSU careers. Maureen Perez ranks seventh on WSU’s career assists list with 1,876. Tara West, who carries a 4.0 GPA and is majoring in biological sciences, leads WSU in hitting percentage (.240) and is tied for sixth in blocks (1.22) in the Pac-10. Adetokunbo Faleti, slowed by a knee injury most of the year, leads the team with 3.26 kills per game.

Zags wrap up

Gonzaga dropped six of its last eight matches, but finished 17-13 overall, its most wins since a 17-12 campaign in 1994. The Bulldogs’ five WCC victories were the school’s most since five in 2001.

“We had a great year, we accomplished a lot as a team and we’re certainly going to miss our seniors,” coach Kip Yoshimura said. “We didn’t play bad over the last half of the season. We didn’t play well (last) Saturday, but it just goes to show how tough our conference is. We had some great wins in the second half.”

Six from NIC honored

Six North Idaho players were named to All-Region teams following the National Junior College Athletic Association Region 18A Championship.

Amanda Misa was a first-team pick, Adrielle Dunn and Renee Bordelon made the second team, and Whitney Tucker, Meredith Dolny and Kelly Scott received honorable mention.