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Last Updated: Oct 16th, 2008 - 13:33:17 |
The vacation is over for Metro's volleyball team. After a second place finish at the Hawaiian Classic Tournament in Hilo, the Roadrunners returned home to host the Colorado Premier Challenge Sept. 5 and 6, at the Auraria Events Center, dropping four straight matches.
In the team's 16 games played, Metro averaged a dreary .016 kill percentage.
Metro played against some top-rated competition in the Premier Challenge, facing off against No. 15 Augustana College out of South Dakota and the seventh ranked team in Division II in the Lakers of Grand Valley State. But even head coach Debbie Hendricks will tell you that it is no excuse for her team to make that many unforced errors and mistakes that they work so hard in practice to perfect.
"Despite the fact that these teams are nationally ranked," Hendricks said, "we're not looking to have moral victories, we're not satisfied with where we're at. We recognize that some of the things we're struggling with are because we're young and haven't played together for very long."
Metro had their best chance at a win in their first match against Augustana College, who came into the contest with an unblemished record of 5-0. Metro took the first game 29-27, but allowed the Vikings to take games two and three.
Sophomore libero Sarah Vallejos had started the first match but was replaced by junior transfer Kendra Shauermann in the second after Augustana tied the match at 1-1.
"Sarah does a great job, we were just looking for something different," Hendricks said. "We've got so much depth in our program, and we're able to do that. It was a positive change today."
The 'Runners offense returned with a game high 18 kills in the fourth game for the 25-23 win, forcing the match into a deciding fifth game. They held a slight 7-5 lead before the Vikings reeled off six straight points. Metro came within three at 14-11, but Augustana outside hitter Cayla Schroeder finished the Roadrunners off with a kill for the 15-11 win.
In their second match of the tournament, Metro could only muster up a .191 kill percentage against the No. 7 ranked Lakers. After falling behind two games by scores of 25-16 and 25-21, the Roadrunners put up their best kill percentage in any game this weekend posting a .368 percentage to the Lakers' .306.
In that third game, Metro took a quick 3-1 lead and paced the way for most of the game. It looked like they would cruise to the win, but Grand Valley State battled back to take a 26-25 lead. The 'Runners got kills from Amanda Cook and Emily Greenhaigh and two attack errors from the Lakers to cut the two game lead to one.
But the Lakers quickly rebounded in the fourth game hitting an impressive .385 kill percentage to send Metro to a 4-1 loss.
The following day, the Roadrunners played unranked teams in Hawaii-Hilo and Northwood University out of Michigan for the bronze bracket. However, the results came out the same for the team picked to finish second in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference.
Through the whole tournament, the Roadrunners missed 29-year-old University of Mississippi transfer Anna Mapes, who will be out two to three weeks with a leg injury.
"It hurts us because Anna is such a mature player, mature individual," Hendricks said. "Not having her on the floor is hurting us, but it's a great time for our young kids to play."
The Roadrunners open RMAC play Sept. 12-13, with matches against Colorado School of Mines on Friday and against the Eagles of Chadron State on Saturday, with both games taking place at the Auraria Events Center.
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