No. 10 NIC sweeps No. 3 Salt Lake
<p>Kyona Hunt celebrates with the North Idaho College volleyball team after scoring a point in the third set of Saturday's match against Salt Lake Community College in Coeur d'Alene. NIC won the contest 3-0.</p>
<p>Tina Strahinic, outside hitter for North Idaho College, blocks a hit from Salt Lake's Aurie Robinson in the first set.</p>
COEUR d’ALENE — The 10th-ranked North Idaho College Cardinals didn’t want to wait for bear season to open in the northwest.
Instead, they were able to hunt down the third-ranked Salt Lake Community College Bruins in a 25-20, 25-12, 25-22 win at Rolly Williams Court on Saturday in a Scenic West Athletic Conference volleyball match.
“We came out focused in each set,” NIC coach Colleen Frohlich said. “We served tough today and kept them out of rhythm and didn’t allow them to get into what they wanted to do.”
Sophomore Tina Strahinic had 14 kills and eight blocks for NIC, which hosts No. 11 Southern Idaho next Saturday afternoon.
“I think the pressure of today was on us because of the conference leader,” Strahinic said. “We did a good job of playing as a team.”
Fei Gao had seven kills and 12 digs, Gabriella Rifilato had 15 assists and Kaylee Ponce had five kills for NIC, which had nine blocks on the match.
“We played with intensity all the time,” Strahinic said. “If we can continue to play like that, we should be able to beat everyone in conference.”
NIC (19-5, 5-0 SWAC), finished the first half of conference play unbeaten. The winner of the conference will host the Region 18 tournament.
“It’s certainly in the back of our minds,” Frohlich said. “We like being in that position, but we’re focused on playing better each match.”
NIC broke open a close second set on a block from Esther Timofeyev and a kill by Gao to give the Cardinals an 11-9 lead. NIC closed out the set on a tip by Gabriella Rifilato.
“That is absolutely how we want to play each game,” Frohlich said. “Once you’ve got the door closed on a team, you want to keep it shut. We were focused on that the entire match.”
The loss was Salt Lake’s third straight and drops the Bruins (21-4) to 2-3 in the SWAC.
“This was a hard weekend for us,” said Salt Lake coach Sue Dulaney, whose team lost at Southern Idaho on Thursday. “Neither CSI or NIC has to play a weekend like this in conference. There’s nothing we can really control about it.”
Aurie Robinson had seven kills, Anna Burgess had eight digs and Catalina Charry had 16 assists for Salt Lake.
Adding to the problems for Salt Lake was the departure of sophomore right side hitter Shelbi Zaldain, who quit the team following last Saturday’s loss to Snow College.
“It was definitely an impact on us,” Dulaney said. “I thought she was with us, but I guess she wasn’t after all. We had Monday through Wednesday to figure out what to do without her. We can’t be starting over at this point in the season. I really hope this match was rock bottom for us. We didn’t resemble the team we’re capable of being today.”