When the Western Nebraska Community College and Eastern Wyoming College volleyball teams hook up Tuesday night at Cougar Palace, it will be a battle of two equal teams in many ways.
Both teams come into the contest with 3-1 records after the opening weekend. Plus, both teams have Region IX Player of the Weeks.
The match-up is slated for Tuesday, August 27 at 6 p.m. at Cougar Palace.
The contest features two teams that have Region IX Player of the Weeks for this week. WNCC has the South Offensive Player of the Week in Lilly Zwart.
Zwart, a sophomore from New Zealand, had a huge weekend where she tallied 77 kills with just eight hitting errors and a .511 hitting percentage. She also had 13 digs, eight blocks, and nine ace serves. She also had 15 service points in a win over Jefferson on Friday at the Reiver Invite.
WNCC captured five-set wins over Butler Community College and Iowa Western Community College, and a four-set win over Jefferson College. Their only blemish was to Hutchinson.
As for EWC, they had both the offensive and defensive player of the week from the North. The offensive was Julia “Belle” Dolan and the defensive was Boden Liljedahl. Liljedahl, a sophomore, had strong defensive statistics in an invite at McCook. Liljedahl had 27 digs against Garden City, 15 against Lamar, and 17 against Frank Phillips all in wins. She had 30 digs in the loss to Northeast Community College.
As for Dolan, she had double-figure kills in all four matches. She tallied 10 against Garden City with four blocks, 11 against Lamar, and 13 each against Northeast and Frank Phillips.
The Lancers defeated Garden City in four sets 25-16, 22-25, 25-17, 25-20 and then topped Lamar in four sets 25-11, 25-21, 21-25, 25-13. After falling to Northeast in four 25-17, 24-26, 25-27, 23-25, the Lancers came back and took care of Frank Phillips in straight sets 26-24, 25-13, 25-18.
WNCC is under first-year head coach Fatima Balza. Balza won a national title back in 2007 with the Cougars and then went on to win two national titles at Penn State. Balza’s team has plenty of talent.
After the first four games, The Cougars have plenty of offensive weapons. Besides Zwart, Finja Schul has 20 kills so far followed by Dessiah Christopher with 16, Tamika Eastman and Ahleejah Tovo-Sunia each with 12, and Nora Marginean with 10.
The defense is spearheaded with two stellar defensive stalwarts in Taylor Tyser, who has 28 digs so far followed by Alex Gonzalez-Orozco with 30. Tyser already had 10 aces while Gonzalez-Orozco has four.
The Lancers have four players that has more than 20 kills this season. Dolan leads with 47 followed by Una Stepic, a freshman, with 44. Annika Cantrell has 24 while Siala Unufe has 25.
WNCC won both games a year ago, winning the August meeting at Torrington 3-0 when Zwart had 12 kills and three blocks. They then won the October meeting at Cougar Palace 3-1.
WNCC leads the overall series between the two teams at 78-55-1. This is also the 50th year of Cougar volleyball and the first volleyball match for the Cougars back in 1974 was against EWC.
