Cardinal volleyball begins year with 2 wins, loss at tournament

TWIN FALLS - Tina Strahinic totaled 51 kills as the North Idaho College Cardinals opened the season Friday with a 2-1 record on the first day of the Buffalo Wild Wings/Hilex Poly Let's Get It Started volleyball tournament at the College of Southern Idaho.

"I was very pleased with how we played today," NIC coach Colleen Frohlich said. "We were able to shuffle a couple different lineups. We were a bit nervous against Salt Lake - but we fought back and dropped them in a couple games. We played a lot better at the end of the day than we started. We found some things we need to work on and fixed it by the end of the day."

In their first match of the day, third-ranked Salt Lake defeated North Idaho 25-16, 15-25, 15-25, 25-15, 16-14.

Strahinic had 14 kills, Fei Gao 10 kills and Gabriella Rifilato had 22 assists for NIC vs. Salt Lake.

North Idaho got its first win under Frohlich with a 22-25, 25-20, 25-21, 19-25, 15-12 win over Snow College.

Kaylee Ponce and Strahinic each had 17 kills for NIC.

In their final match of the night, NIC defeated Northwest College of Powell, Wyo., 25-20, 27-29, 25-17, 25-21.

Strahinic had 20 kills, Gao nine kills and Ponce three aces.

North Idaho faces Casper College and top-ranked Southern Idaho today.

"It's a good tournament," Frohlich said. "There's a lot of good teams down here that we'll hopefully see down the road. It's a great tournament to start the season."