CASPER, Wyo. - After winning its opener, then falling a little short in the quarterfinals on Thursday, the North Idaho College volleyball team still has plenty to play for entering today's play of the NJCAA tournament at the Casper Events Center.

Larissa Claassen had 14 kills and 15 digs for ninth-seeded North Idaho College (17-11), which lost to top-seeded Blinn College of Brenham, Texas, 25-21, 23-25, 25-18, 25-18 on Thursday night.

As a team, NIC had a hitting percentage of .147 (51 kills in 150 attempts) against Blinn.

"If we're going to beat a team like that, our outside hitters are going to have to carry the mail for us," NIC coach Miles Kydd said. "We just didn't get it done the way we normally do."

NIC (17-11) will play No. 4 seed Iowa Western (43-4) today at 1:30 p.m. PST, with the winner playing in the fifth/sixth place match Saturday, and the loser playing in the seventh/eighth place match on Saturday.

"Our goal is to finish better than eighth right now (where the Cardinals finished last year)," said Kydd, in his first year as NIC coach. "All we've got to do is win one of our final two games. It would be good for this team to finish either fifth or sixth."

Allison Meehan had 39 assists, Russia Robinson 26 digs, Leeta Grap 11 kills and five digs for NIC against Blinn (37-3).

Blinn beat NIC 29-27, 25-22, 17-25, 23-25, 15-6 in the school's other matchup at the Starr Corporation Invitational on Sept. 7 in Twin Falls.

Bruna Evangelista had 15 kills, Rachel Sharp and Rebecca Reeve had eight kills each and Trinity Alualu had 15 digs for Blinn, which faces No. 5 Hillsborough (40-4) in a semifinal match tonight at 5:30 p.m.

Earlier, Grap had 16 kills, Robinson 18 digs, Meehan 33 assists and Claassen 16 digs for NIC, which defeated No. 8 seed Arizona Western 26-24, 25-22, 25-17.

"We've seen them on video and the match went like I expected it to," Kydd said. "Our style versus their style was going to work for us in the long run."

Maria del mar Guzman Franco had eight kills and Abbie Noland had 13 digs for Arizona Western (19-5), which faces No. 16 Gadsden State (27-8) in a loser-out match today.

No. 6 seed Salt Lake, which defeated NIC in the Region 18 tournament championship match, beat No. 11 Hill College 25-12, 25-15, 25-17 and No. 3 seed Western Nebraska 27-25, 25-19, 25-23 to advance to tonight's semifinal round. The Bruins (24-6) will face No. 2 seed Tyler (33-4) at 5:30.

All matches will be webcast at njcaatv.com