Friday, September 03, 2010

WNCC volleyball splits at Salt Lake Invite

SALT LAKE CITY -- The Western Nebraska Community College volleyball team had a rough go at the Salt Lake Invite Friday, splitting a pair of matches to fall to 5-1 on the season.

Ariel Austin pounded home 16 kills in leading the Cougars to a 25-25-14, 25-12, 25-19 win over Central Wyoming College. WNCC then fell in four games to Salt Lake Community College 25-23, 24-26, 25-23, 25-19 to finish the first day.

"I think we played really well against Central. we played a lot of people and everyone that came in did a good job and played with a lot of fire," WNCC coach Giovana Melo. "Against Salt Lake we had really good moments and then some OK moments. Like I have been saying we are a pretty young team and we have to learn to be a little bit more consistent if we want to compete against good teams."

Melo said her team will rebound, and they will need to quickly as they will face two tough opponents on Saturday. The Cougars will face Western Wyoming Community College, who stunned Northeastern Junior College in three games, at 9 a.m. and then face No. 1 College of Southern Idaho at 1 p.m.

"We play two pretty tough matches [today]," she said. "Obviously we have to come out with a little bit more fire and a little bit more discipline to compete against those teams."

WNCC performed well in the two matches. Against Central Wyoming, Austin was the big force with 16 kills. Kathryn Stock also had nine kills and 11 digs. Also for the Cougars, Tania Torres, Lais Soares and Fernanda Goncalves each had two blocks. Goncalves also had 21 assists and two aces, while Debora Araujo had 11 digs, Kuulei Kabalis had nine digs, and Sierra Schmidt and Emily Hoehn each had five points.

In the Salt Lake loss, four Cougars finished with double-digit digs led by Stock Kabalis with 18. Stock also chipped in 14 digs, Araujo 12 and Goncalves with 10.

Also for the Cougars, Araujo pounded home a season-best 20 kills, Austin had nine, and Stock with eight. Stock and Torres each had four blocks, while Goncalves had 37 set assists, six points and two aces.

Melo said that the loss to Salt Lake will help the team in future matches.

"We have to learn a little bit of what happened today, which is good for us," Melo said. "I think it us good for us to see we have a long ways to go. Obviously nobody wants to lose, but we have to learn. We have to move on and we just can't talking about the loss; we definitely have to learn from it. "

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