Sioux City, Iowa – In the program's first-ever NAIA Quarterfinal appearance, the McPherson Bulldogs would face a tough test against the first ranked team in the bracket, Eastern Oregon University. The Mountaineers had beaten Huntington and St. Thomas in their pool play by a combined score of 6-1, while the Bulldogs were coming off their thrilling five-set victory over a previously unbeaten Cumberlands just the previous night.
The Basics
Location: Tyson Event Center
Records: MC 34-2, EOU 31-2
Score: MC 3, EOU 2
How it Happened
The Mountaineers earned their respect right away in the opening set, working themselves to a comfortable lead early on. Eastern Oregon opened the match with a 5-1 run capped off by a kill from Kiauna Mack, which was then followed quickly by an attack error to cut the margin to three. Almost in the blink of an eye the Mountaineers were ahead 18-10, hitting efficiently and not letting the Bulldogs find any easy attack attempts. Eastern Oregon played incredibly dominant at the tape earning four total blocks in the set, taking the first set by way of 25-16.
As they displayed the day prior, the Bulldogs had every capability of bouncing right back with the top nationally ranked team in the United States. The Bulldogs and Mountaineers went point for point with one another throughout this second set. McPherson found the ability to hit through the fronts of Eastern Oregon and found their offensive rhythm once again, but the Mountaineers still swung with the force of a thousand suns and matched every point the Bulldogs could gather. At 20-20, neither side had used a timeout to the point where you almost forgot coaches had two timeouts in each set. The Mountaineers had won a crucial rally off the swing of Keira Vaughn to take a late 22-21 lead, but
Brooke McHale fired back to level the score at 22-22. Following a point from Eastern Oregon,
Cory Cahill used a timeout just to give his team a chance to breathe after 55 consecutive points.
It'd be Eastern Oregon's sixth service error of the match that leveled the game at 23-23, but McHale's kill gave the Bulldogs set point at 24-23.
Aubree Gaona's serve was too much to handle for the Mountaineers and we found ourselves tied at 1-1.
If you were a Bulldog fan in Sioux City during the third set, you were on your feet for the entire thing. The Bulldogs tore up the arena and worked their way from being down 13-11 to 18-13; a SEVEN-point run. The Mountaineers had called two timeouts, but by then the score was 21-16 McPherson. The second timeout had proved to be efficient as the Mountaineers had rallied back ahead to a 22-21 lead on a six-point stretch, making the McPherson faithful to sweat. Following a
Cory Cahill timeout, it was Hamilton once again in a clutch moment that tied the game with a kill for the 22-22 tie. Eastern Oregon took three of the final four rallies to escape set three with the 25-23 victory and the 2-1 lead.
The momentum that had struck the Bulldogs in the third set rally had vanished, as Eastern Oregon rolled in the fourth. The Mountaineers hit over .400 and seemed to block just about everything at the tape. Despite the game locked at 7-7 in the early stages, Eastern Oregon went on a 12-2 run and worked their way to a 19-9 lead. When the score was a 23-11, Eastern Oregon had scored again but a successful
Cory Cahill challenge had overturned the call to give the Bulldogs a slight bit of light, but Eastern Oregon had gotten the next one to get set point at 24-13. The Bulldogs put together a number of points to make things interesting in the end, but Eastern Oregon had the final say and took the 25-17 set four victory to move onto the NAIA Semifinal.
