BILLINGS, Mont. -- The Dickinson State volleyball team played Rocky Mountain College at a bad time.
The Blue Hawks fell in straight sets 25-16, 25-16, 25-18 Saturday night to the Bears, which are on a five-game win streak and taking down everyone in their path, including the top teams in the conference.
"We played well, they played better," DSU head coach Jon Stenman said. "They're on a roll right now and their last two matches they swept Lewis-Clark and absolutely crushed Carroll, worse than they beat us."
Stenman said the team played better than the day before and the last time it played Rocky Mountain at home. The team overall hit positively, played a little smarter, but Rocky's physicality was too much too handle. The team is much stronger at the middle position unlike DSU, which has two freshmen starting at the position.
Senior outside hitter Melissa Avila had a team-high 11 kills, half of them coming in the third set, as well as contributing an ace, a block and eight digs. Junior outside hitter Jenifer Huebner led the team with 10 digs.
ADVERTISEMENT
"We didn't beat ourselves tonight. Did we play perfect? No," Stenman said." There's a few things we could have done better. We could have blocked better, we could have had a little bit better offense, but we didn't make the layering streaks and points, didn't hang our heads and kept moving forward and they're a good team."
The Blue Hawks return home to play the University of Jamestown at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the Scott Gymnasium.
"What we're going to do is keep focusing on this blue collar, going to work mentality we talked about," Stenman said. "Because we don't have as much talent as some of these teams we have to play smart, we have to play kind of boring volleyball, pass well, play defense, find ways to get kills. If that's what we have to do to get wins, that's what we have to do."
DSU 16 16 18 -- 0
RM 25 25 25 -- 3
Kills: DSU, Melissa Avila 11, Maggie Rauser 4, Kelly O'Connor 2, Whitney Weidow 2, Linaya Schroeder 2, Kate Golding 1.
Blocks: DSU, Avila 1, Golding 1.
Aces: DSU, Avila 1, Rauser 1, Justine Braunagel 1.
ADVERTISEMENT
Digs: DSU, Jenifer Huebner 10, Tasha Malana 9, Avila 8, O'Connor 7, Meghan Meyer 5, Braunagel 5, Golding 3, Weidow 2, Rauser 2.
Assists: DSU, 20, Huebner 1, Malana 1.
