Numbers add up for Cards on the court

Whether it be the quick start to the season, or an unbeaten weekend, the momentum appears to be on the side of the North Idaho College volleyball team.

And it couldn’t be coming at a better time.

IN CASE you missed it over the weekend, NIC claimed the Highline Fall Classic in Des Moines, Wash., going 5-0 and improving to 9-2 on the season.

On Saturday, NIC beat Umpqua 25-19, 25-13, Skagit Valley 25-18, 25-19 and Mt. Hood 25-23, 25-23. That was after sweeping Grays Harbor 25-18, 25-11 and Pierce 25-18, 25-17 on Friday.

“It was a great weekend for the Cardinals,” fourth-year NIC head coach Kelsey Stanley said. “I was very pleased with how the girls finished each game. We had many games where we started off really slow and it wasn’t until mid-game we started to pull things together and play our game.”

Over the weekend, Hailee Etter had 33 kills, Halle Hess 31 kills, Rachel Leshikar 59 digs and Haylee Templeton 131 assists for NIC.

“We have been emphasizing playing our game a lot this year,” Stanley said. “We’ve been struggling with playing at our opponents’ level, and not ours.”

NIC has six sophomores on its roster this year, including Hess and Leshikar, who were all-tournament selections last weekend. Etter was named tournament Most Valuable Player, and Sandpoint product Kayla Neumann were named tournament all-stars.

“We have an all-around solid group of girls this year, which is always nice,” Stanley said. “Not only are our starters solid, but the bench is as well. We have many girls who can and have been able to prove to us that they can put a ball away. We need to work more on our serve-receive in order to get those sets off to our hitters, though. This weekend, we struggled with getting the passes to our setter. We were having to play a lot of out-of-system balls. Once we get our passing percentage better, we will be hard to stop.”

NIC WILL take on a bit of a challenge this weekend, traveling to Great Falls to compete in the Great Falls tournament against NAIA schools Montana State-Northern, Great Falls, Carroll and Montana-Western.

“I always like to have a hard tournament to compete in before the (conference) season starts,” Stanley said. “It’s an eye opener for our girls to see and compete against a faster pace offense and also for those four-year coaches to take a look at our sophomores and freshmen.”

The Cardinals open Northwest Athletic Conference East Region play against Big Bend on Sept. 13 at Christianson Gym.

“I’m so excited to see how far this team will go this year,” Stanley said. “After walking away this weekend 5-0 and not losing a set, I still felt like we could have played better and that there was so much that needed to be fine-tuned. We definitely still have much more room to grow. Our freshmen have had to jump in right away and take control of their position, and they’ve been doing an outstanding job. “Hailee, who was named Northwest Athletic Conference East Player of the Week, has been our go-to, and been very successful. She’s been our kill leader the past two tournaments, and I don’t see her slowing down. Hallee Hess brought a lot of experience back. She’s a smart player and knows how to keep things calm when things go sideways.”

Fortunately for the Cardinals, it’s been more sideouts lately.

Jason Elliott is a sports writer for the Coeur d’Alene Press. He can be reached by telephone at (208) 664-8176, Ext. 2020 or via email at jelliott@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter @JECdAPress.