Volleyball Goes 3-1 at Southeast Invite in Nebraska

BEATRICE, Neb. – Coming off the first win in program history, Hawkeye Community College continued the momentum with a strong showing in a tournament at Southeast Community College on Friday and Saturday.

The RedTails went 3-1 overall, rebounding from an opening loss to Highland Community College by rolling to sweeps of Cloud County Community College, McCook Community College and host Southeast Community College.

In the opening match, Hawkeye fell 25-22, 25-23, 25-23 and 25-18 despite 17 kills from Megan Hudson. Teammates Jessica Hopkins, Paige Eiffler and Ashley Cary each contributed four kills apiece. The RedTails collected 22 blocks, led by Hopkins with three solos and four assists.

In the second match, the RedTails dominated at the net with 33 kills and stormed by Cloud County 25-14, 25-12 and 25-22. Hudson led the way with 16 kills, while Eiffler had five and Cary had four. Brooke Dreesman led the team with three solo blocks.

In the third match, Hawkeye rolled through McCook 26-24, 25-19 and 25-15 as Hudson pounded down 15 of the team's 42 kills. Hopkins and Eiffler also contributed with eight and seven kills, respectively. Defensively, Hopkins had five of the RedTails' 17 blocks, while libero Haylee Keune had 13 digs, and Lexi Wroe, Maggie Driscol and Hudson each had seven.

In the fourth match, the RedTails got a tournament-best 18 kills from Hudson as they defeated Southeast 25-20, 25-17 and 25-16. Altogether, Hawkeye collected 49 kills, getting nine from Cary and eight from Eiffler. Defensively, Hudson and Driscol each produced 13 digs and Dreesman collected two solo blocks and an assist.

"The girls know we must continue to keep climbing the ladder and getting better," said head coach Scott Weston, whose squad is now 4-1 on the season. "We have things we need to improve upon and we'll get to work on those. We had some large deficits to overcome this weekend. We never panicked, kept cool heads, fixed what we needed to fix, and made up the deficits.

"We talk all the time about gaining and keeping the momentum, as well as understanding you can't score 15 points on one ball. Focus on one point at a time, investing in every single ball, and good things will happen. The group seems to have a switch that suddenly flips on and they say, 'We better start playing now.' Then they turn up the heat and put pressure on the other team. There is absolutely no quit in this group."