CHENEY, Wash. – The 2018 season came to a close Saturday night (Nov. 17) for the Eastern Washington University volleyball team. The Eagles hosted Northern Arizona and battled with the first-place team, but fell in straight sets (23-25, 22-25, 14-25). Prior to the match, Eastern said goodbye to three seniors in Kahle Elliott, Alexandra Espinosa and Taylor Larsen.
 
"We came out and we knew we were going to be smaller than them physically, so we knew we had to be good servers and I think we did that with seven aces on the night. We put them in a lot of trouble with our passing and that was the number one thing we wanted to do," said head coach Leslie Flores-Cloud.
 
Northern Arizona built a 9-5 lead over the Eagles when a kill from MaKenna Davis sparked a 4-0 run and tied the match at 9-all. The Lumberjacks kept their advantage and led 21-15 when another 4-0 EWU run put them within two points and forced an NAU timeout. Eastern kept fighting after the timeout, using a 3-2 run to come within one point following a kill from Kahle Elliott. An NAU service error on set point cut Eastern's deficit to one point, but they dropped the set 25-23.
 
Trailing 5-3 in the second set, Eastern strung together five consecutive points to lead 8-5. Northern Arizona responded later in the set with a 5-0 run of their own to pull ahead by three, 13-10. Down four, 18-14, another Davis kill sparked a 4-0 spurt that tied the match at 18-all. After the Lumberjacks pulled back ahead 21-18, Eastern went on a 4-1 run that was capped off with a Kassandra Thomazin service ace to tie the set once more, 22-22. NAU would then call a timeout and fire off three straight points to take set two, 25-22.
 
The Eagles couldn't find much offensive rhythm in the third set, hitting just .065 with nine kills and seven errors to NAU's .500 clip and dropped the final set 25-14 and the match 3-0.
 
WIN-LOSS RECORDS: Eastern wraps up the 2018 season 8-22 overall with an 0-18 mark in Big Sky Conference play. Northern Arizona, who clinched a share of the regular season title this evening and a top seed in the tournament, improves to 23-8 and 15-3 in conference play.
 
TOP PERFORMANCES: Kahle Elliott led the way on Senior Night with 10 kills, two blocks and a career-high two service aces. MaKenna Davis followed with nine kills. Kassandra Thomazin also had two blocks to lead the team and an ace.
 
ShaRae Niu served up two aces and dished out 25 assists. Both Catelyn Linke and Puaoolelagi Sao had 12 digs. In her first match since Sept. 18, Alexandra Espinosa started the match and accounted for eight digs.  
 
KEY STATS: Eastern served up seven service aces to Northern Arizona's four. The Eagles only had one serving error while the Lumberjacks had 10. EWU hit at a .077 clip (31k-22e-117ta) to NAU's .310 (45k-10e-113ta). Eastern was also out-blocked, 9-to-3.