Women’s Volleyball: Western Oregon Wraps-up 2006 Season This Week

The Wolves are 6-18 overall, and 4-10 in GNAC play.

Salem-News.com Sports

MONMOUTH - Western Oregon will put a close on the 2006 season this week, traveling to Saint Martin’s on Thursday and hosting Seattle University on Saturday. Start time for both matches is 7:00 PM.

Senior Salute:

The matches will be the final two collegiate games for Keyanna Jenkins and Nicole Kludt. Jenkins played two seasons at WOU after transferring from Clark College in Vancouver. The Mountain View High School alum has started in 10 matches this season, and is third on the squad in service aces (16), is fifth in kills per game (1.71) and averages 2.29 digs a contest. She is also a standout on the track for the Wolves, winning the conference 100 meter title last year with a time of 12.13. Kludt is a four-year letterwinner from Prineville, Ore. She has seven starts on the season, and is averaging 1.38 kills per game and has 11 aces. She had a career-best 18 kills against Alaska Anchorage as a sophomore, and she fired four aces at Saint Martin’s in a match last season.

Joe’s Salute:

“Keyanna and Nicole will be noticeably absent next year in so many ways, it is hard to describe them all in words. Each has demonstrated through their actions and their play the emotion they bring to the sport, and we are happy to have them as alumni of our WOU athletic program. Nicole has been through four years and two head coaches, and generally conducted herself with grace and respect through a tough transition. Keyanna has been a hard working dual sport athlete, and has put a definite imprint on the WOU athletic program through her efforts.”

Youth Mission:

With only two seniors leaving via graduation, WOU will have a host of returnees back next year. 12 underclassmen lettered this season, and six players with significant starting experience would be slated to return in 2007.

Skid Snapper?:

The Wolves hope to end a six-match skid on Thursday, after falling to Western Washington last Saturday night in three games at the Physical Education Building. WOU is now 6-18 on the season and 4-10 in GNAC play.

Coach Houck:

“As a program working toward establishing ourselves as a contender in the conference, we have everything to play for this week. It would have been nice to put up more W’s, but we are playing better in nearly every position on the court than we were two or three months ago. We are working on solidifying the team unity and maturity it takes to close out good teams when you have a lead, and the poise and leadership to win on nights when we may not have our “A” game. We are a work in progress, and we will look for progress on the court and on the scoreboard this week, just like we have driven ourselves in that direction all season.”

Home Cookin’:

Western Oregon’s fortunes improve dramatically when they play at home in the Physical Education Building. The Wolves are 3-4 this year at home, 1-9 on the road, and 2-5 in neutral site matches.

Crowd Control:

WOU fans like their Wolves this year, with attendance the highest that it is has been for the past six seasons. Western Oregon is averaging 303 fans per home contest, the highest average since the year 2000, when the Wolves went 27-6 and averaged 408 fans per contest at the Physical Education Building.

By The Numbers:

In WOU’s balanced attack, junior Shakira Jenkins leads the team in kills with 3.21 a game, with sophomore Katrina Johnson next at 2.52, followed by Laura Sakala with 2.37 and Lisa Martini at 2.18. Jenkins has posted 21 kills against Incarnate Word , Central Washington and Alaska Fairbanks this season, while Johnson had 21 against Saint Martin’s and Alaska, and Martini had 19 in WOU’s win over Chadron State. Sakala is injured and will miss the last three weeks of the season. Junior Claire Carpenter (Gresham/Centennial HS) leads the Wolves in digs with 3.92 per game and had a season-best 30 against Fairbanks on Oct. 7, while freshman Jessica Baty (Pendleton) is right behind at 3.07.

Martini is the blocks leader with 0.77, and is the only player to start in all 24 matches for the Wolves this season. Freshman Amy Herron (Spokane, Wash./Mead HS) has 27 aces and 6.78 assists to lead the Wolves in those categories, and she had a season-best 60 assists at Alaska Fairbanks.

Saint, Redhawk Reviews:

In a season filled with road trips, WOU will make one final short one on Thursday to Lacey, Wash. to take on Saint Martin’s. The match will be the last home contest of the year for the Saints, who would love to pick up their second victory of the season at the SMU Pavilion. Saint Martin’s is just 1-17 on the season and 1-13 in GNAC play. Their lone win this season came at home against Alaska Anchorage on Sept. 21st, and they have since dropped 10 straight. But even with only one win, the next closest that SMU came to winning was on Sept. 9th -- at Western Oregon.

They pushed the Wolves to five games, before WOU finally won in the fifth, 15-11. WOU has won the last three matches in the series, and leads all-time, 18-3. Seattle still has an outside shot to slip into the Pacific Region playoffs, especially if they can defeat Central Washington on Thursday. The Redhawks are ranked tenth in the region, with an overall record of 16-9. They are an even 7-7 in GNAC play, tied for fourth with Northwest Nazarene. Seattle has won four of its last six matches, which includes a 3-1 defeat of WOU on Oct. 12th. The Redhawks have won nine straight in the Wolves-Seattle series, and SU leads all-time, 9-6.

Joe on SMU, SU:

“We will be focusing on breaking a losing a streak, and starting a new winning streak this week. SMU played us very tough here to open the season, and Seattle was a handful for us at their place.

We have been working hard and getting better every week in practice, and we will do our best to put a couple of full matches together this weekend. Stacey (Bennett), Lisa (Martini), and Shay (Shakira Jenkins) had great offensive numbers vs. WWU, and we will need them to repeat that this week. We are still looking for a fourth weapon on offense, and hopefully that can be Kat (Katrina Johnson) or someone else in these matches. If we can manage to sustain the play that moved us to leads late in each game against WWU, we should be fine.”

Conference Countdown:

The GNAC title will be decided this week when Seattle Pacific travels to Western Washington on Thursday. The Falcons are unblemished at 15-0 in league play, with WWU next at 13-1. Both teams are secure for making the eight-team Pacific Region field, with Central Washington looking strong as well if they defeat Seattle on Thursday.

Improvement:

In 2005, under first-year coach Houck, the Wolves won five more games in conference play than in 2004 and picked up three more wins overall to finish 11-15 and 9-9 in the GNAC.

Houck Headlines:

Coach Joe Houck came to WOU with a 97-32 career record, gained from leading the Concordia University program for five seasons (his 51-10 record at Eastern Washington as associate head coach is not included in his career mark). Houck, who also won three state titles as a prep coach at Barlow High School in Gresham, now has a collegiate mark of 114-65.

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