The Western Nebraska Community College volleyball team continues cruising along after capturing another tournament title, sweeping through the Wyo-Braska Shootout after topping Miles Community College to finish the tournament unblemished.
The Cougars, however, looked far from spectacular as they beat the Pioneers 25-12, 25-17, 25-15, committing several serving errors throughout the match.
“I am not really happy with the way we played in the tournament. We still have a lot of work to do. Yeah, we are 31-2, but that doesn’t mean anything to us,” first-year coach Giovana Melo said. “We missed a lot of serves and we missed a lot of hits. We missed a lot of things on all the fundamental thing. To me, it wasn’t just the serves [today], it was everything that we did. We just didn’t play well at all.
“It seems that we walk on the court and then decide when we want to play and that is something that we need to learn how to do.”
The Cougars, 31-2, now have 10 days off before their next competition slated for Sept. 30 against McCook Community College. Melo said the break will help refresh the Cougars intensity as they can concentrate on areas of the game that need work on.
“We are going to practice hard this next week and it is good for them to have a little time off to get their heads cleared and the come back and focus in again. We have some big tournaments coming up with some good teams that we still have to play, and if we don’t get better, we are not going to keep winning.”
Saturday, though, was a contest that was luke warm for Melo, as the Cougars let Miles hang around in all three games.
In the opening game, the Pioneers sliced the lead to 7-6 and trailed 10-8 before the Cougars started to put things together on three service points by Brook Bloomenkamp. WNCC widened the lead to 17-9 on two Gregner Quinones points and cruised to the first-game win, despite committing five service errors.
The second game was just as tight in the early going with both teams knotted at 7-7. Freshman Naomi Flinders then took over, serving four points with kills by Fatima Balza and Cami Weimer for an 11-7 lead.
The Pioneers fought back, trimming the lead to 18-16. Flinders then served five straight points to give the Cougars a 23-16 lead, followed a Weimer kill that closed out the game 25-17.
Miles quickly came out in game three with plenty of passion, assuming a 3-0 lead. Balza stopped the early scoring run with a kill and then served six points to put the Cougars up 7-3.
The Pioneers kept battling, slicing the lead t5o 15-10 on a Cougar missed serve. But the Cougars depth was too much for the Pioneers as Flinders added two more service points, and Nayka Benitez finished off Miles with an ace serve.
Balza finished the contest with 12 kills, eight points, three aces and two digs; while Kaleinani Kabalis had 11 kills, seven points and three digs. Also for the Cougars, Flinders paced the Cougars with 11 points and also had 10 set assists, followed by Sabina Piegza with 26 set assists, three points and three digs; Benitez with four points and 14 digs; Bloomenkamp with three points and five kills; Quinones with four points; Weimer with four kills; and Palamo Alvarez with three kills.
Other scores in the tournament saw Northwest College top Seward County in three straight games 25-20, 26-24, 28-26, and Casper topple McCook Community College 25-13, 25-18, 25-14.
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