The Western Nebraska Community College volleyball team put together a team effort win Saturday afternoon, moving to 2-0 on the Region IX South conference with a 25-12, 29-27, 25-12 win over Otero College Saturday afternoon at Cougar Palace.
The Cougars moved to 17-6 on the season as they get ready to host three matches next week, beginning with a non-conference contest on Tuesday when Laramie County Community College comes to Cougar Palace. WNCC will then have a pair of South conference games on Friday and Saturday with Lamar Community College and McCook Community College coming to Scottsbluff. Tuesday’s contest starts at 6 p.m. with Friday’s contests starting at 5 p.m. with Saturday’s contest slated for 1 p.m.
Sophomore Chloe Grady, who was one of the players that had a strong front row play on Saturday, said the team played well and it is beneficial when they get balanced offensive and defensive output like they did Saturday as well as Friday in the 4-set win over Trinidad State.
“I think we played pretty well (against Otero),” Grady said. “I think the passing was good. The serving was good. I think in the second set we slowed down a little but we were able to catch up.”
The big thing for this team is going 2-0 in conference play and that is huge as they fight for a top seed in November’s Region IX tournament in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Grady said it feels good to be 2-0 in conference, but they have to keep playing hard.
“I think that means a lot especially coming back from last year and we didn’t do so well,” she said. “So, just coming back stronger this year is huge.”
The big thing in the win was the team’s hitting and it wasn’t just one person, it was a team effort. WNCC hit .337 for the game and had five hitters register five or more kills with another three getting at lead a kill.
“I think that is really important for our team to spread out the hitters a lot,” Grady said. “It really helps with the blocking and relieving from two blockers.”
Lilly Zwart and Tamika Eastman led the way with 11 kills each. Zwart hit .250 for the game while Eastman hit .333. The two middle hitters, Grady and Finja Schul combined for 14 kills. Grady had six kills and hit .500 with a solo block and three assisted blocks while Schul had a solo block and five assisted blocks.
WNCC also got five kills from Nadiyyah Northern, three from Ahleejah Tovo-Sunia, two from setter Nora Marginean, and a kill from Dessiah Christopher.
Blocking was also huge. While the team only had two solo blocks, they registered 15 assist blocks.
The team also had strong serving. While they had just four aces with Tovo-Sunia with two and Eastman and Marginean each with one, four different servers had five or more points from behind the line including several key service runs to open up the sets.
Tovo-Sunia led the way with 16 service points followed by nine from Eastman, seven from Marginean, five from Taylor Tyser, and three from Zwart.
Three players also had double-figure digs and the hustle in the match also saw the players keeping the balls alive with some ESPN-highlight reels with plays. Tyser led with 16 digs followed by Tovo-Sunia with 15, Alex Gonzalez-Orozco with 11, Marginean with six, Eastman with five, and Zwart with four.
The first set was tight at the start, but WNCC opened the set after two Marginean points for a 13-6 lead. Otero cut the deficit to 17-12, but Tovo-Sunio closed out the set with seven straight points with three kills from Schul for the 25-12 win.
The second set was a battle. WNCC led 6-4 after three Zwart points, but Otero came back to grab a 20-17 lead and led 23-20 late. Northern followed with a kill and Tovo-Sunia had two service points to tie the set at 23.
Otero had set point three times, the final time at 27-26. Eastman stopped the Rattlers run with a kill and then the Sioux County High School graduate, served two points with Grady getting a kill to make it 28-27 and the Grady got a big solo block for the 29-27 win.
The third set saw WNCC take control early with the Cougars leading 3-0 and then 8-2 after four Eastman kills. The Cougars led 14-4 after Tyser served five points and continued the strong serving moments later when Tovo-Sunia had five points for a 21-7 lead. WNCC won the match on a Northern kill 25-12.
