This weekend will be the day that Western Nebraska Community College coach Fatima Balza will begin her head coaching debut when the Cougars head to Council Bluffs, Iowa, to compete in the Reiver Classic. It is also the 50th year of Cougar volleyball in which their first collegiate game was in October 1974. There is no doubt that Balza and the players are excited to be getting the season started.
“I am excited,” Balza said. “Well, this team has been practicing and ready or not, here we go. I think everyone is excited.”
The Cougars will have two matches each day beginning Friday when they face Butler Community College at 1 p.m. followed by Jefferson College at 4 p.m. Saturday’s contests will have WNCC taking on Hutchinson Community College at 10 a.m. and then Iowa Western Community College at 12 noon.
Balza said now is when the season starts.
“The season starts officially now, and we just need to make sure they are ready physically and mentally and emotionally in the game and every single match and every single point,” Balza, who won three national titles as a player including one at WNCC and two at Penn State, said. “We are going to play different teams as well. It will be different from last weekend. Last weekend was scrimmage games and two games to 25 no matter what. Now, it the feeling of the actual season starting.”
The Cougars got some competition in last weekend at the NJC Jamboree where they faced Western Wyoming Community College, Laramie County Community College, and Gillette College. The Cougars went 1-1 against WWCC and LCCC and went 2-0 against Gillette.
Balza said that was a good weekend for the team and gave her an idea of what each player can do on the court.
“I just like to focus on the process instead of the results right now especially this early in the season,” she said. “I think when we lose control of ourselves, we start thinking outside of the game and that is reflective on the game and that reflects us and we start making mistakes and can’t get out of them. Once we are able to focus we are a different team.”
In the match last week against LCCC, where the team won 25-17 in the first set and fell 25-12 in the second, the Cougars tallied nine solo blocks, led by Chloe Grady with four. Lilly Zwart led in kills in that match with 11.
WNCC was strong in blocking and hitting in the Gillette match, where they had six solo blocks and had seven different players register a kill. Zwart had 10 kills while Tamika Eastman had five kills.
“I feel like I have a really good group of kids. It is very competitive,” Balza said. “I have 12 players and two red-shirts, and we have to make sure everyone is healthy. It will be a long season and we need to do recovery days, ice. We have different recovery methods that we have to keep doing to make sure everyone stays healthy.”
Staying healthy is key for this team. WNCC returns nine sophomores back from last year’s 16-18 team, but only seven of them will be playing this year as two will red-shirt because of injuries. Those two are returning starters Dani Cruz and Kyana Gabriel.
The other seven have showed a lot of improvement from the first day of practice on August 2 to today. Those returning that will be counted on are hitters Lilly Zwart, 5-foot-11 from Nelson, New Zealand; Chloe Grady, 5-11 from Kaneohe, Hawaii;; Tamika Eastman, 5-10 from Harrison, Nebraska; Dessiah Christopher, 5-6 from Naples, Florida; Finja Schul, 6-1 from Bergisch Gladbach, Germany; and Jaylen Nachtigall, 5-8 from Hot Springs, South Dakota.
Taylor Tyser, a 5-4 libero from Laramie, Wyoming returns as a solid defensive specialist, where she tallied 471 digs a year ago along with 25 service aces and 25 set assists.
The key to the season will be the freshmen and they have been making progress. The newcomers will be led by setter Nora Marginean, 5-9 from Napoca, Romania; Alex Gonzalez-Orozco, 5-6 from Gering, Nebraska; Nadiyyah Northern, 5-11 from Avondale, Arizona; Juju Melendez, 4-11 from Ellenwood, Georgia; and Ahleejah Tovo-Sunia, 5-7 from Laie Hawaii.
While the season starts this weekend, Balza said the key for the team is shaking off mistakes and trying to make a good play after a bad one. Minimizing those mistakes is crucial.
“The results will be important, but it is not what I am focusing right now,” she said. “I am focusing on the process that we will be very, very happy. For example, this week in practice we have been practicing a lot on minimizing our errors and then helping each other in communication. If we do that better, then I will be very happy.
“The key is we need to have support needed like working with breathing techniques and praises. If they make a mistake, they need to shake it off as soon as possible and having your teammates say shake it off, too, and then back it up with a good play. That is the environment we want.”
After this weekend, the Cougars will come back to have their home opener on Tuesday, September 27 when they face Eastern Wyoming College at 7 p.m.
WNCC will play six teams that are ranked in the pre-season Top 20. The Cougars will see four of them at the three tournaments in September including No. 8 Odessa College, No. 9 Indian Hills Community College, No. 11 Utah State-Eastern, and No. 17 Barton Community College.
The other two ranked teams are Region IX foes including No. 3 Northeastern Junior College and No. 16 Casper College.
After the home EWC game, WNCC won’t be home again until September 24 when they host Casper College. That will be the start of six straight home contests. WNCC wraps up the season October 30 when they host NJC.
The Region IX tournament will be held at LCCC in Cheyenne, Wyoming, with the national tournament being in Clarksville, Tennessee.
