WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL

The Huntington University women’s volleyball team opened play at the NAIA Women’s Volleyball National Championship final site on Wednesday morning, pushing No. 1 overall seed Eastern Oregon to the brink in a marathon third set before falling 3–0 inside the Tyson Events Center. The Foresters dropped the match 25–16, 25–14, 32–30 and move to 25–9 on the season. 

Eastern Oregon (30-2) showed why it entered the tournament as the top seed, applying immediate pressure from the service line and at the net. After HU scored the first point of the match, the Mountaineers rattled off four straight behind a Stidham ace and a Womack kill to seize early momentum. Huntington briefly closed the gap to 7–5 with attacks from Haley Kruse and Trevyn Terry, but EOU’s block tightened, sparking a 6–1 run that created a cushion the Foresters could not overcome. 

The second set opened nearly identically, with Stidham again leading a 4–0 run that put HU in an early hole. Huntington responded with a quick 3–0 burst featuring a Maisyn Robrock kill and a service ace from Olivia Krahn, yet Eastern Oregon answered with another extended push behind the offensive efficiency of Womack and Keira Vaughn. Service pressure from Ava Semprimoznik stretched the lead to 16–8, and the Mountaineers maintained control to take the set 25–14. 

Huntington delivered its strongest volleyball of the day in the third, flipping the script with a 9–4 start fueled by a dominant serving run from senior Layla Meyer, who delivered three aces during the surge. The Forester offense clicked into rhythm as Maggie Hollon, Leah Carter, Kruse, and Robrock each added timely kills, helping HU build leads of 13–6 and 18–12. But the nation’s top seed rallied late, using a 5–0 run behind Womack, Vaughn, and middle blocker Kiauna Mack to pull even at 18–18. 

From that point forward, the set evolved into one of the most dramatic frames of the tournament so far. The teams traded 13 ties and nine lead changes, with Hollon delivering repeated clutch swings to keep HU alive—recording equalizers at 24–24, 25–25, 29–29, and 30–30. But Eastern Oregon capitalized on a late HU miscue and closed the set with another Womack kill to take the 32–30 thriller and the sweep. 

Hollon and Kruse each finished with eight kills to lead Huntington, while setter duo Kennedy Urban and Lauren Ross combined for 22 assists. Meyer anchored the defense with 15 digs and four aces in her senior season, and Krahn added 10 digs and an ace. The Foresters totaled 51 digs and seven service aces while producing their best offensive set of the match in the third, hitting .255. 

Eastern Oregon was paced by 15 kills from Womack and 12 from Vaughn, hitting .231 as a team while adding 14 total blocks. 

Pool play continues on Thursday, with Huntington facing Saint Thomas University at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. If the Foresters can defeat Saint Thomas, they would then need Eastern Oregon to lose its next match to Saint Thomas on Friday to create a three-team tie in the pool. In that scenario, all three teams would meet in a one-set head-to-head tiebreaker on Friday night to determine which team advances to the next round.