7A
Friday, September 13, 2019
The Observer
Young Mounties
set to make
strides in 2019
Ronald Bond/The Observer
Eastern Oregon’s Jet Taylor, right, and Madison Pilon, center, attempt to block a kill during the Mountaineers match
against College of Idaho Thursday night at Quinn Coliseum.
BIRTHDAY
BLOCK PARTY
Ronald Bond/Observer fi le photo
Michelle Herbes is the top returner for Eastern Oregon
after reaching nationals individually in 2018.
By Ronald Bond
By Ronald Bond
The Observer
The Observer
Michelle Herbes got a
taste of what the NAIA na-
tional championship cross
country meet is like last fall.
This year, the Eastern Or-
egon University sophomore
is hoping to take her team-
mates along, and there is an
anticipation that the Moun-
taineers will be in the mix to
fi eld a full women’s team to
nationals this season.
“Everyone’s been doing
really good on their train-
ing,” Herbes said. “Our
workouts the past few
weeks have been really
good. We’ve been working
really well together as a
team. Even though we’re
really young, there is a lot
of talent that came in, (and)
a lot of the returners have
talent and room to grow.”
Herbes, who qualifi ed for
nationals last year as an
individual, said the national
meet was an “amazing
experience,” and believes
the still-young EOU squad
— which returned all seven
fi rst-year runners from last
year and has even more
freshmen — has the talent
to get there.
“It’s something we can
achieve as a team as long
as we work hard through-
out the season and trust
ourselves and our training,”
All Jet Taylor wanted for her 19th
birthday was for Eastern Oregon to
sweep rival College of Idaho.
The Mountaineers gave her just that
— though the sophomore had a big hand
in it.
Taylor had celebrated her birthday
with 10 kills and fi ve blocks, and the No.
8 Mountaineers swept No. 20 College
of Idaho, 25-19, 25-21, 25-17, Thursday
night in their home opener at a hopping
Quinn Coliseum.
“I’m so happy — best birthday ever,”
Taylor said.
Megan Bunn added 13 kills to lead
EOU and Cambree Scott had eight, and
the pair, along with Taylor, helped form a
nearly impenetrable wall at the net.
“We had a lot of energy coming into
tonight. We knew after last weekend we
had to get in gear and do things a lot
better than we were doing,” Bunn said.
“It started with energy. It started with
discipline, doing our jobs, taking and
sorting things out on the court.”
Scott turned in seven blocks and Bunn
had six to go with Taylor’s fi ve. Taylor
Tibbetts added four as EOU fi nished
with 13 team blocks.
“We worked a lot on timing. We
worked a lot on crossing the plane of the
net,” EOU head coach Kaki McLean-
Morehead said. “Some teams that we’ve
played have used our block, and we
wanted to make sure that was not an
option tonight.”
Scott and Taylor, who lead EOU with
72 and 55 blocks, respectively, have
helped boost EOU to one of the NAIA’s
Ronald Bond/The Observer
Eastern Oregon’s Sade Williams reaches out for a dig during Thursday’s
match against College of Idaho.
top teams in denying the opposing
team’s kills. After Thursday’s match,
Eastern, in fact, leads the nation with
138 team blocks and is in the top fi ve
with 2.8 per set.
“It’s defi nitely something we needed
to improve on coming out of Corban’s
game last week, so we really just dialed
in on that, I think we were really focused
on delaying on our fi rst step and getting
over the net (on the block),” Taylor said.
It’s an even more impressive feat con-
sidering the two leading middle blockers
are considered smaller middles, both
being listed at 6-feet even.
“Where we lack in height, we make up
for in our hops,” Taylor added of her and
Scott.
The middles were also effective on the
attack running the slide play, where the
ball is set backwards to the right side of
the net as the middle slides around to
the right side for the attack.
“We tried last year, we just weren’t
very good at it,” McLean-Morehead
said. “That was something we defi nitely
worked on in the offseason, and with
shorter middles, we want to make them
as effective as possible, but also able to
move, and ours can move. We wanted to
work on that because it’s a hard play to
block. They have defi nitely improved in
that.”
The kill attempts for C of I that did
get through the front line were more
often than not dug up by a solid back-
line effort from Kiley McMurtrey, Aspen
Christiansen and Sade Williams.
“Aspen and Kiley were amazing. And
See Party / Page 8A
she said.
EOU head coach Ben
Welch said he is really excited
about the potential the EOU
women have this season.
“That is a very good
group,” he said. “We had
that huge freshman class
last year and all seven of
them are back. (I’m) quite
excited about that. A few of
them had some setbacks (in
the offseason), but for the
most part they look good
and they’re training well.”
Part of what has Welch’s
hopes high is how the team
performed in its preseason
time trial.
“That was one of the best
time trials we’ve had in a
long time on the ladies side,”
he said, adding it was the
top effort in the time trial
since 2010 and noting that
both Herbes and Megan
Boals had top-10 all-time
fi nishes in it. “We get a lot of
good indicators out of it.”
Herbes, Katie Jo Geb-
hardt, Boals, Alexa Jones,
Calista Van Delden, Kendra
Blake and Molly Gulden
are all returners who
competed at the Cascade
Collegiate Conference meet
last fall to help EOU take
sixth. Eastern could also
get a boost from fi rst-year
runner Ella Coughlan, a
freshman from Joseph.
See Preview / Page 8A
La Grande rolls past Nyssa on the pitch and on the court
By Ronald Bond
The Observer
Ronald Bond/The Observer
La Grande’s Audrey Garlitz, right, and Starra Ullman, center, battle for possession with
Nyssa’s Ashley Macedo during Thursday’s match.
By Ronald Bond
The Observer
One thing is apparent
early in the season for the
La Grande Tigers — they
have multiple players who
can fi nd the back of the net
multiple times in a game.
Audrey Garlitz registered
a hat trick, Lauran Rinker
added two goals during a
dominant fi rst half, and the
Tigers made quick work of
the Nyssa Bulldogs Thurs-
day, winning 9-0 at Com-
munity Stadium to shake off
their fi rst loss of the season.
“By the end of the summer
and (as we were) starting
to see things come together,
See Soccer / Page 8A
Ronald Bond/The Observer
La Grande’s Jaiden Hafer, making a play at the net
Wednesday, served during a 15-0 La Grande run in its
sweep of Nyssa.
The La Grande Tigers
made quick work of Nyssa.
Really quick.
The Tigers scored 17 of
the match’s fi rst 19 points
and dominated in a 25-9,
25-16, 25-9 home win over
the Bulldogs at La Grande
Wednesday at La Grande
High School.
“Some of the things
we focused on in practice
this week we were able to
execute during the game,”
head coach Melinda Becker-
Bisenius said. “We talked
about protecting the tip, we
talked about adjusting on
our blocks and defensively,
and I thought we did a good
job of that tonight. When we
played Nyssa in our tourna-
ment at home they tipped
See Volleyball / Page 8A