The Evergreen State College volleyball team lost its first two conference games of the 2024 fall season, winning none of its sets against Walla Walla University and Lewis-Clark State University over the weekend at the Constantino Recreation Center in Olympia, WA, on September 6 and 7.
Molly Parker, who had a stellar preseason, proved to be crucial again in these games as the trusted libero had 10 and 15 digs in the Walla Walla and Lewis-Clark games, respectively, while middle blocker Sophia Scroggins had six kills for both games.
The Geoducks are in a rebuilding phase as they will try to return to the conference playoffs for the first time since 2022 after that year’s 5th-seed finish. They will try to better their performance last year, in which they finished in 10th out of 12 participating schools after a 4-22 win-loss record, 4-18 in the conference.
They will have a crunch of three huge games on the road within four days as they travel to Caldwell to face the College of Idaho on Friday, September 13. Then, they will be at La Grande to face last year’s champions Eastern Oregon University the following day. Finally, they will end their away trip to face Northwest University in Kirkland, WA, on the 17th.
The Geoducks were swept on their opening game over the Walla Walla University Wolves (25-27, 14-25, 16-25) at their home court last Friday, September 6, just coming short and distraught from a hard-fought opening set.
Evergreen commanded the majority of the opening salvo, with their lead ballooning to 17-10 after efforts from Lucendy Perez and Jessica Mitchell, before Walla Walla had an 8-5 run to make it 22-18.
The Geoducks were on the cusp of winning the opening set at 24-20, but the Wolves climbed back to launch five points in a row to overturn the fortunes at 25-24 before costly errors at the clutch swayed the set for the visitors.
Since then, the Evergreen State has had a hard time recovering. The second set started at 16-8 for Walla Walla before ending at 25-14.
The third set had quite a resurgence for Evergreen. After trailing 11-3, a 7-1 run from the efforts of Yasmin Dilworth, Sophia Scroggins, and Lucendy Perez made it a tight 12-10. Jay Miyazawa also held it close to 14-12 trailing from her service ace, before Walla Walla pulled the plug and coasted the win to 25-16 sealing the L for the hosts.
Marin Collins, Sophia Scroggins, and Lucendy Perez all had 6 kills, while Maloree Calzadillas had 12 excellent sets and Molly Packer had 10 digs. This is the first time Walla Walla has defeated Evergreen since 2009.
The Evergreen State wrapped up the conference opening weekend with yet another crushing sweep in the hands of Lewis-Clark State (10-25, 15-25, 14-25) at home last Saturday, September 7.
After an opening set blowout where they struggled to achieve a double-digit score, the Geoducks rallied from behind to erase an 8-3 deficit to tie the set to 12 apiece, thanks to a run led by Sophia Scroggins.
Fresh from a forced timeout, the visitors were proven too much as they only allowed three points since that tie, thanks to a run led by Taylor Boyce and Anna Merrill to run away with 25-15.
The third set was just an outgassed Evergreen trying to stay alive. Finding themselves in a 20-6 hole, Evergreen tried to climb back to make it 24-14 but was just too late, as a spike from Karissa Linder sealed the away victory for the Warriors.
Postgame stats showed the visitors' utter dominance, as Evergreen had fewer kills (22 vs. 43), more errors leading to points (21 vs. 16), and fewer service aces (1 vs. 8) while being reduced to a .013 hit rate. A silver lining for this Evergreen defeat is that they beat the Warriors in the blocking department (6 vs. 2), which is also apparent in the Walla Walla game.
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