After the Idaho State volleyball team dispatched Pacific in the first match of the Orange and Black Classic at Reed Gym Thursday night, it looked like everything was rolling in the right direction for the Bengals.

At 8-2, ISU tied its best 10-game start in program history, the Bengals had won six straight matches, and they were leading the nation in digs per set as kind of a statistical bonus.

But facing two formidable foes in Wyoming and Boise State to close out the tournament, the Bengal momentum stalled out.

The Cowgirls shut down ISU in straight sets, 25-19, 25-21, 25-22 on Friday. The Bengals, who edged Boise State in five sets two weeks ago, then gave the Broncos another tough match on Saturday, but ISU couldn’t hold leads in the first and third sets, and went down to Boise State, 26-28, 20-25, 23-25.

With Big Sky Conference play beginning on Thursday at suddenly resurgent Idaho, which leads the nonconference standings with a 9-3 record, now is not the best time for the Bengals to stumble a bit.

“You could maybe say that,” acknowledged Bengal coach Sean Carter. “Just the feel of it. You play college sports with young people and if they’re going to ride the wave of emotion of how it feels from day to day with wins or losses, then yeah, that could be a little bit of a bummer going in.”

But despite the two tough losses over the weekend, Carter put a different spin on the Bengals’ nonconference campaign, which still saw them posting an 8-4 record against a pretty tough schedule.

“If you would have told me before the conference season, you’ll finish 8-4, and I won’t tell you who your wins are, and I won’t tell you who your losses are, will you take it, or do you think your team can do better,” Carter told his team after the BSU match, “I would have said, ‘Stamp it, I’ll take it right now.’ I still think we had a great nonconference season …”

Still, according to Carter, it could have been better, especially if the Bengals had maintained the momentum they created in the first set against the Broncos on Saturday. Employing a new form of a 6-2 set, ISU jumped out to an 8-2 lead in the opening set. While the Broncos battled back to eventually tie at 23-all, ISU still had two set point opportunities at 24-23 and 25-24, but couldn’t close the deal.

“We played great early on,” said Carter. “It’s one of the best hitting percentages that we’ve had. We had 19 kills, hit .289. Now granted we still had six errors, but when the Bengals have 19 kills, we should never lose … We missed too many serves; we made too many attacking errors that kept it close. Then they got hot at the end and then we ran out of subs and that’s not a lineup you want to run out of subs. You get this weird thing that happens at the end.”

The second set, meanwhile, was tied at 19 before Boise State won six of the last seven points to wrap that one up. In the third set, ISU led 20-18 before the Broncos scored seven of the last 10 points to finish out the match.

Boise State outside hitter Sydney Dreves, a sophomore from Coeur d’Alene, was the star for the Broncos, compiling 13 kills, three blocks, three assists and nine digs.

“I could tell from the stat sheet that she had 20 attempts in the set, the balls were going to go there,” said Carter of the Broncos’ strategy to force-feed Dreves. “But they pass pretty well and at certain points we were flinching a little bit too much, thinking they might set someone else when we’ve just gotta go, ‘All right, that’s the girl to stop, let’s stop her.’”

The “girl to stop” for Idaho State was senior middle blocker Jaydin Watts, who had a team-high 12 kills and an excellent .455 hitting percentage. Watts has led the Bengals in kills five straight matches, which is causing other teams to focus on defending her.

“I would do it too, if it was our team,” said Carter of concentrating on defending Watts. “I’d be like, ‘Everyone is going to stop her. Make them set the other people and then go from there.’”

The Bengals need to find more help for Watts from their outside hitters, Carter noted.

“They (BSU) had 40 kills from their pin players to our 22,” he said. “They had 48 kills to our 41. So that was a big deal. We gave them too many attacking errors, but we’ve gotta get pin players that can be much more consistent. Mia (Walsh) had eight kills, but after that we didn’t have another pin player that was over five.”

The Bengals open Big Sky play against an Idaho team that has been one of the bottom-feeders in the conference in recent seasons — the Vandals were 3-13 in league play last year, 6-22 overall. But after sweeping the New Orleans Invitational over the weekend, Idaho has won five straight matches on their way to a 9-3 overall record.

“I told our team, ‘You better not be thinking, “Oh, it’s Idaho.”’” said Carter. “Winning and confidence is a powerful thing. So they are going to be coming in like, ‘We can beat them.’ I feel like they always play us tough. They’ve got some good, young kids and I bet they’ve added a few more people. So yeah, I was hoping it could be more of a weekend where we could be tinkering and finding some stuff, but I certainly don’t have that thought now.”

After the Idaho match, ISU travels to Cheney to take on another rebuilding program on Saturday. Eastern Washington, which finished last in the Big Sky last year with a 1-15 record, and 3-25 overall, is off to a nice 6-6 start this season as well.

“I’m excited for a really competitive road trip and I tell our team, if you want to be a championship team, you’ve gotta win on the road,” said Carter. “So we’ve got a great test in our first road week. We get to go play two pretty hot teams that are certainly overperforming what they did last year. I’m really proud of our league, and the coaches at Idaho and Eastern went out and got some wins and the league looks great. Now we’ll go see the blood bath that I think the Big Sky is going to be.”

Wyoming Wins Tournament

The Wyoming Cowgirls, under the direction of Kaylee Prigge, the daughter of former Idaho State quarterback and NFL coach Dirk Koetter, won the Orange and Black Classic. The Cowgirls edged Boise State, 3-2, and swept both Pacific and Idaho State in straight sets.

Boise State finished 2-1 with wins over Pacific and Idaho State.

The Bengals beat Pacific 25-12, 25-19, 25-17.