The 2022 season came to an end for the Fort Lewis College volleyball team on Thursday in the quarterfinal round of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Tournament. The eighth-seeded Skyhawks fell in three sets to the nation’s top team and the tournament host, Metropolitan State University Denver, 25-16, 25-23, 25-19.
Fort Lewis closes out its season 10-15 overall, bettering its win total of six from last season. The Skyhawks played eight matches against teams ranked in the AVCA Coaches Poll Top-25, including No. 1 MSU Denver on three occasions. MSU Denver advanced to the RMAC semifinals 26-1 overall.
“We came out fighting in each set, which is exactly how we want to compete,” said head coach Giedre Tarnauskaite. “We left everything we had on the court today, and I am proud of the progress we made this season. I'm very encouraged about the future of this program.”
Fort Lewis held MSU Denver to a .243 hitting efficiency, 50 points lower than its season average. The teams were nearly even on defense with the Roadrunners putting up 52 digs to the Skyhawks' 51. Both sides collected four service aces while MSU Denver committed a match-high nine errors at the line.
Sophomore Alexis Hobie, recently named Second Team All-RMAC, led all players with 12 kills to go along with 13 digs for her eighth double-double of the year. Freshman Ella Butler followed with six kills and a pair of blocks. Senior Kamryn Lopez led all players with 15 digs, closing out her Skyhawks career with 1,159 digs to rank 10th in FLC’s record book. Sophomore Natalia Lambos was credited with 22 assists to end the year with 648.
Fort Lewis kept it tight in the first set. A kill from senior Rylee Johnson cut Metro’s lead to 5-4. The Skyhawks stayed close, but a three-point run by the Roadrunners extended their lead to 18-12. A kill from Hobie moved it to 19-14 before a clutch scoring run helped MSU Denver snag the set.
The teams traded points in the second set. Fort Lewis took an 8-7 advantage when Hobie tallied back-to-back kills, but RMAC Player of the Year Rylee Hladky responded with a shot of her own to knot it. MSU Denver then led 15-10, but junior Lauren Shea buried one through the lock to jump start a comeback resulting in a 19-19 tie. The Roadrunners sided out with a huge block, but back-to-back Butler kills gave FLC a 21-20 edge. MSU Denver scored the next three before Butler got another kill. After the Roadrunners reached set point, Shea kept it alive with a kill, but MSU Denver closed out the set by denying Hobie.
The third set was tight in the early before MSU Denver went to a run to go up, 9-4. The Skyhawks responded with five points on kills from the outside, middle and right to pull within one, 10-9. Fort Lewis fought to tie the set at 12-12 with another Shea kill. The Roadrunners scored nine of the next 11 points to take a 22-15 lead. Kills from Johnson and Hobie to cut the deficit to 23-19, but the late burst was not enough.
FLC reached new heights in its third season under head coach Giedre Tarnauskaite and reached the RMAC Tournament for the first time in her tenure. The Skyhawks averaged 1.6 aces per set, breaking the program’s previous record of 1.4 aces per set in 2021. The team also improved its hitting efficiency by nearly 20 points while facing one of the toughest schedules in recent history. The front row averaged 1.7 blocks per set, the most since an identical average in 2019.
Hobie led the team with 3.25 kills per set, followed by Shea (2.05). Johnson ended her Skyhawks career by averaging 1.84 kills per set on a team-best .223 efficiency. Butler averaged 1.40 kills per set (. 220) and a team-best 38 service aces. Lambos coordinated the offense for much of the year and averaged 8.10 assists per set. Lopez closed out her career by averaging a career-high 4.03 digs per set.
