BOX SCORE
PORTLAND, Ore. – The Eastern Oregon University volleyball team finished its season with a loss at Concordia University in four games Saturday.
Concordia's Raluca Dinca posted 17 kills and Erika Doremus added 10 in their final home match of the season. With the win, the Cavaliers improve to 19-8 overall, 14-4 in the CCC. Eastern Oregon falls to 13-11, 9-9 in the CCC with the loss.
The first set was the closest of the match, featuring seven tie scores and four lead changes. Eastern Oregon jumped ahead to four-point leads at 7-3 and 8-4 before Concordia opened a 13-5 run to take a 17-13 lead. The Cavs took a set-high five-point lead at 22-17, but Eastern Oregon scored five of the next six points to pull within one at 23-22 before the Cavs closed out the set on a pair of Dinca kills.
The second set was all Eastern Oregon, as the Mountaineers out-hit the Cavs .415-to-.200 in the game. Eastern Oregon jumped out to a 9-3 lead and never looked back, posting nine-point leads at 17-8, 20-11 and 21-12 before reaching their match-high 11-point advantage at 24-13. The Cavs scored two of the next three points, but
Jessica Lea's kill finished the 25-15 set victory for Eastern Oregon. Lea contributed seven of her team-high 14 kills in the set.
Lea added 22 assists and
Emily Sampson finished with 16 assists for EOU.
Irene Walters had 10 kills and
Kaitlyn Duncan had a team-high 10 digs.
Concordia bounced back in the third set, recovering from a brief early two-point deficit to finish the set on an 18-11 run to take a 2-1 advantage in the match. Clair Thiel tallied six of her 11 kills in the set to help the Cavs to the 25-18 victory.
The final set was tied early at 2-2, but Concordia scored 10 of the next 12 points to take a 12-4 lead. The Cavaliers continued to dominate play in the deciding set, finishing on a 23-7 run and out-hitting the visitors .516-to-.056 to earn the 3-1 match victory. Lindsay Mangan contributed 52 assists for the Cavaliers.
Concordia is the third seed in the CCC volleyball tournament and will play the No. 2 seed College of Idaho Nov. 12 at 4 p.m. in Ashland in the CCC semifinals. The winner will face either Southern Oregon or Northwest for the title on Saturday.
