WNCC volleyball to face Hillsborough Community College in first-round at national tournament

The Western Nebraska Community College volleyball team’s road to the National Junior College Athletic Association national title won’t be a cake walk by any means.

The Cougars, who won their ninth straight regional title and finished last year as national tournament runner-ups, enter next week’s national tournament as the No. 5 seed and will face No. 12-seed Hillsborough Community College (32-6) out of Tampa, Fla. The game is slated for Thursday at 3 p.m. (MST) in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The tournament runs Nov. 15-17.

WNCC coach Chris Green, who earned Region IX Coach of the Year honors last week, said he doesn’t know a lot about Hillsborough except they battled undefeated and perennial national power Miami Dade College this season.

“They [Hillsborough] have one outside hitter that is pretty good from Puerto Rico and they almost beat Miami-Dade in the Florida championship, so they must be pretty good,” Green said. “They haven’t played a lot of matches outside of Florida so it is hard to gage their strength."

WNCC’s second-round match will be against either the University of Arkansas-Ft. Smith (38-4) or Temple College (22-13). The winner’s will face off Thursday at 7:30 p.m. The losing teams will meet Friday at 11 a.m.

“The first round is going to be tough for us. I think the top 10, 11 and 12 teams are very good, and unfortunately we have to play one of the better teams in the first round,” Green said. “Then [if we win] I am thinking we will play Arkansas-Ft. Smith. We played them last year in the Liberal, Kan., tournament, but of course they have different players now. They are very good and ranked ahead of us. They beat Frank Phillips, who we lost to.”

Green said the entire tournament will be difficult.

“Just to get to the semi-finals will be tough,” he said. “We will have two tough matches just to get to the semi-finals. Obviously, we will be an underdog if we get to that second round. Hopefully we can keep improving the next week and come out and be at the top of our game.”

The rest of the first-round match-ups include No. 3 Frank Phillips College (40-1) against No. 14 Casper College (30-17) and No. 6 Iowa Western Community College (56-3) against No. 11 Missouri State-West Plains (30-12) at 9 a.m.; No. 7 Barton County Community College (37-7) against No. 10 San Jacinto-Central (30-17) and No. 2 Miami Dade College (30-0) against No. 15 Spartanburg Methodist College (25-2) at 11 a.m.; and No. 1 Salt Lake Community College (40-1) against No. 16 Northwest Shoals Community College (35-9) and No. 8 College of Southern Idaho (37-11) against No. 9 Blinn College (32-3) at 1 p.m.

If WNCC reaches the semi-finals, they could have a match-up with No. 1 Salt Lake Community College, who handed the Cougars a defeat back on Sept. 1. WNCC’s other loss on the season came to Frank Phillips.

The Cougars have faced six of the other teams in the tournament field this season, recording an 8-2 record. WNCC met up with Casper College (4-0), Salt Lake (1-1), Frank Phillips (0-1), Barton County (1-0), Iowa Western (1-0) and Southern Idaho (1-0).

Green said while the road to the tourney title looks tough, his team has been putting in some quality time in the gym leading up to the national tournament.

“Our hitters have been doing some nice things in practice and we are trying to work on getting our outside hitters to be able to hit around blockers and be even more consistent and use different shots,” he said. “So, we have been working really hard with our outside hitters with Jennifer on the rightside and then our two outside hitters. Hopefully all that that work in practice will pay off.”

WNCC is slated to depart for Council Bluffs Tuesday at noon for their ninth-straight national tourney. The college will have a send-off for the team at 10:45 a.m. in the commons area of the college that morning with speeches and refreshments to wish the team good luck at the tournament. The send-off is open to the public.