The Western Nebraska Community College volleyball team put together a complete contest from start to finish and swept through Trinidad State Junior College 25-15, 25-12, 25-13 Saturday afternoon at Cougar Palace. In posting their fourth straight sub-region win, the Cougars utilized a balanced hitting attack, but more importantly committed just three hitting errors whereas they had 14 service errors Friday night against Lamar.
"I thought we played pretty good today. We have been working on staying on the same level throughout the game and not letting up at all and being steamrollers," Scottsbluff graduate Mackenzie Westphal said. "I think we did a pretty good job of that today. We served and passed better today then we did yesterday, and I think that is why we won."
The Cougars were led
by Ariel Austin's 14 kills followed by Kathryn Stock's 10 kills. Debora Araujo also chipped in seven kills, Tania Torres five kills, Jodi Huddleston four kills and Westphal hammered home three kills.
Westphal said it is a big benefit for them to have such a balanced hitting attack.
"Anybody can be on the court at anytime and we still can get kills," she said. "The kills are always even between every player and I think that is one of the reasons why we are so good because it is not the whole load on just one person. We all help each other and we can all carry this team together."
While the team was putting down kills at an alarming rate -- they only had nine hitting errors -- they also had a strong defensive match. Emily Hoehn finished with 16 digs, while Araujo had 14 digs. Stock had nine defensive digs, while Sierra Schmidt finished with seven.
Serving was another positive in Saturday's contest. Fernanda Goncalves paced the team with 10 points followed by Aruajo, Stock and Torres with six points, and Schmidt with five. Like Westphal said earlier, the serving was much improved from Friday night.
"Serving is the one thing we work on the most because it is so important," she said. "We had trouble with it yesterday [Friday] but today we definitely served stronger and we didn't miss as many. That is one of the bigger parts of volleyball in making your serves and getting your passes. We work on doing that every practice to get better at."
WNCC controlled the first set rather easily as the team finished with three ace serves and Huddleston finished off the set with a monster kill to give the Cougars the win.
The Cougars were even more impressive in set two, vaulting to a 14-7 lead on a Torres kill and then three Torres service points. WNCC pushed th elead to 18-9 on three Goncalves points and then Schmidt finished off the Trojans with three service points, including an ace serve.
The third set was a little closer at the beginning as Trinidad trailed 3-2 and later 11-6, but the Cougars never let Trojans put together a service run more than one point. WNCC went up by double digits on a Westphal kill at 19-9 and never looked back. Goncalves closed out the contest with an ace serve.
Westphal said it was nice to see this team play from start to finish.
"Finishing strong in three sets is a big deal for us," she said. "We have been working really hard in doing that of being consistent and not letting up for one second. To finish in three sets is a good thing for us and we are going to keep doing that the rest of the season."
WNCC, 23-3, will next be in action next weekend as they take part in the Ozfest Invite at Seward County Community College. The Cougars will face Hutchinson Community College and Seward County on Friday and then Redlands Community College and Midland College on Saturday. The Cougars will then return home on Oct. 12 to host the border-war against Eastern Wyoming College.
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