Nicole Robinson

Using the UW-River Falls Trick or Treat Invitational as one final tune-up before this week’s conference tournament, the UW-Eau Claire volleyball team picked up a split, losing twice Friday and rebounding to win two matches Saturday.

The Blugolds defeated Bethel College (Minn.) 3-2 and then swept St. Scholastica (Minn.) 3-0 to salvage two victories and leave UW-River Falls with a 2-2 record after dropping both matches Friday.

“We just decided to have fun,” senior middle hitter Becca Carstensen said of the second day. “We went back to the basics and the fundamentals.”

The win over St. Scholastica was the second victory over the Saints in the week. The ‘Golds also beat the Saints last Tuesday at McPhee.

The result was similar to their previous encounter, as the Blugolds had little trouble in sweeping the Saints with 30-18, 30-16 and 30-24 wins.

The five-game victory over Bethel was more of a struggle. The Blugolds lost the opening game 30-18, as they had only nine kills in 42 attacks for a .240 hitting percentage.

Although the hitting percentage continued to suffer, the Blugolds were able to come away with wins in the next two games by margins of 30-27 and 30-23. Following a 30-18 Bethel win in the fourth game, the Blugolds won the fifth and decisive game 16-14.

“We played really consistently,” said freshman Heather Harnell of Saturday’s matches. “We never got freaked out about the score, we just played smooth and together as a team.”

Friday, the Blugolds lost to conference rival UW-Stout 3-1 and to the University of Minnesota-Morris 3-2.

In the opener against Stout, the Blugolds battled back from a 2-0 hole and won the third game 30-13. After battling the Blue Devils back and forth in the fourth game, the ‘Golds eventually lost 37-35.

Junior Molly Menard had her second-highest kill total of the year with 20. Carstensen had her best hitting performance of the year, with 15 kills on 24 attacks for a .625 percentage.

The Blugolds had to come from the hard-fought loss and immediately play Morris, a fact that may have hurt the Blugolds, Harnell said.

“It’s not an excuse, but we had to go right away and play Morris,” Harnell said. “It was pretty much a good tournament except for Morris.”

Eau Claire had a 2-1 lead against Morris but failed twice to clinch the win, dropping the next two games 30-23 and 15-10.

Carstensen said there were several reasons why Friday didn’t go as well as the Blugolds would have liked.

“It was a combination of things,” she said. “Our overall confidence was low, we made a lot of hitting errors and Stout and Morris are two good defenses.”

With the two victories Saturday, the Blugolds finished the year with a 20-10 overall record as they head into the conference tournament.

Eau Claire, seeded sixth in the tournament, will head to UW-Platteville and take on the third-seeded Pioneers, a team the Blugolds beat 3-2 earlier in the regular season.

“We know we’re a strong team,” Carstensen said. “We can compete with any of the teams in our conference.”

Should the Blugolds win, they will advance to the second round and play the winner of the match between Stout and UW-Oshkosh Thursday.