Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Jennifer Martinez wins a battle at the net with Texas Permian Basin's Skyler Friel for one of her 11 kills on the day.
Christelle Kialanda goes up for a hit between a pair of Texas-Permian Basin defenders in the second set of Saturday's match at Greyhound Stadium. Kalanda had six kills in ENMU's 25-15, 25-17, 25-19 win.
PORTALES — With double their 2017 win total already reached entering Saturday, it’s safe to say nobody’s underestimating the Texas-Permian Basin Falcons anymore.
But Saturday showed it’s not wise to sleep on Eastern New Mexico either. The Greyhounds rolled for the second time in as many days, sweeping the visiting Falcons 25-15, 25-17, 25-19 in a Lone Star Conference match at Greyhound Stadium.
With the victory, the Greyhounds (7-8, 5-3 LSC) avenged a four-set loss Sept. 11 in Odessa, and moved into sole possession of fourth place in the conference.
“They played us well at their place,” said senior Jennifer Martinez, who tied Jasmine Gannon with a team-high 11 kills for the second-straight match. “But we had a talk, and we aren’t going to lose at home.”
The first set was back-and-forth early with the Falcons (8-6, 3-3), but the Greyhounds ripped off a 13-1 run and never trailed the rest of the afternoon.
Eastern had 45 kills, with Jaedynn Devoux adding 10, to the Falcons’ 19 and held Permian Basin to a negative-.045 hitting percentage.
“We got a lot better hitting from our pin hitters (in the Sept. 11 match),” Falcons coach Tim Loesch said. “Today, we couldn’t get much out of our pins. At our place we hit a better percentage. It wasn’t great, but it was good enough for us to win.”
Martinez, who added three blocks, said the gameplan was to key on the Falcons’ middle hitters. Greyhound coach Sia Poyer echoed those sentiments, particularly pointing out junior Skyler Friel.
“We did a really good job of serving them so they couldn’t involve their middles,” Poyer said. “Every time they got a good pass, they set up their middle.
“We held them to a negative hitting percentage as a team, which at this level is really hard.”
Eastern, with five LSC wins, is now more than halfway to reaching last season’s total, and they’ve recently won despite the devastating blow of losing Sarah Tuioti-Mariner to a season-ending knee injury.
They’re 3-1 since then, with the only loss coming to No. 20 Tarleton State. There are plenty of reasons for that, Poyer said, including some freshmen stepping up and Martinez finding ways to score points.
“She’s found ways to sneak shots by bigger hitters,” Poyer said. “That’s a huge factor for us.”
The Greyhounds have another two more back-to-back weekends coming up, but they’re both in Texas. They face St. Mary’s Friday before returning to LSC play at Texas A&M-Kingsville, then head to Texas Woman’s and Texas A&M-Commerce the following weekend.
