WNCC volleyball earns No. 4 seed at nationals, will face Wallace State in first round

The Western Nebraska Community College volleyball team’s road to a national championship begins Thursday and it won’t be an easy journey.

The Cougars, who are making their 12^th straight appearance at the NJCAA national tournament, earned the No. 4 seed in the tournament. WNCC, 39-4, will tip off tournament play Thursday at 2 p.m. against the 13^th-seed Wallace State-Hanceville Community College. The tournament will be played at the West Plains Civic Center in West Plains, Mo.

Wallace State enters the 16-team tournament field with a 52-1 record after dropping Gadsden State in straight sets to earn their second-straight national tournament appearance. WNCC earned a spot at the national tournament by sweeping Northeastern Junior College 25-23, 25-22, 25-20 in the if-necessary match.

This is the second straight year that WNCC and Wallace State collided in the first round. Last year the Cougars topped the Lady Lions 25-21, 25-20, 25-14 on their way to a third place finish at the national tournament.

WNCC coach Giovana Melo said she is not under estimating Wallace State since this year’s tournament is wide open.

“I expect from them [Wallace State] as much as I expect from everybody else. It is a national tournament,” Melo said. “Every team will be playing as hard as they can. I am not doing anything different then what we have been doing all year. We are just trying to get better as a team.”

The tournament field is fairly balanced. The only teams missing from the field is defending national champion the College of Southern Idaho and the host team, Missouri State-West Plains. Other than that, it will be a dogfight to the title.

“We have a very tough schedule and we have to take one game at a time,” Melo said. “We are going to focus on every point then winning will be a consequence. This year’s teams are very equal in talent I think the National Title it is up for grabs. It will come down to every single detail.”

The top five seeds in the national tournament include Miami Dade College, Western Wyoming Community College, San Jacinto College, WNCC and Blinn College.

WNCC is in the same side of the bracket as Blinn and Miami Dade. Also on the Cougars side is Salt Lake Community College, a team that defeated the Cougars earlier in the year.

If WNCC wins its opening game, they will face the winner of No. 5 Blinn, 31-5, and No. 12 Temple College, 25-11, Thursday at 6:30 p.m. A first-round loss by the Cougars sends them to the consolation round against the loser of the Blinn/Temple contest. Blinn comes into the contest with plenty of height with five players 6-foot or taller, including 6-4 Tereza Chudobova, a freshman from Opava, Czech Republic.

Wallace State, the Cougar’s first-round opponent, fell just once this season, a four-set loss to Loyola University out of New Orleans. The Lady Lions have just one player above 6-0 in Alysha Smith.

Melo said her team should be ready for the first-round contest, even though they will be one of the last teams to play.

“It is not going to be any different than they would be if they played the first game of the tournament,” she said. “It will take a lot of will, heart, discipline, and determination.”

The tournament schedule will pit No. 3 San Jacinto (26-9) against No. 14 Jefferson College (21-10) and No. 6 North Idaho College (26-6) against No. 11 Iowa Western (42-6) at 8 a.m.; No. 7 Florida State-Jacksonville (30-7) against No. 10 Eastern Arizona (30-4), and No. 2 Western Wyoming (37-5) against No. 15 Barton County (25-8) at 10 a.m.; No. 1 Miami Dade (33-0) against No. 16 Gadsden State (29-9) and No. 8 Salt Lake (26-6) and No. 9 Midland College (33-5) at noon; and then the Blinn/Temple and WNCC/Wallace State matches rounding out the first round at 2 p.m.

Quarterfinals will be played Thursday night with semifinals Friday afternoon. The championship is slated for 5:30 p.m. on Saturday.

The WNCC athletic department also announced that there will be a public send-off for the volleyball team on Saturday during halftime of the WNCC and Oglala Lakota men’s basketball game. The game is slated for a 3 p.m. start and there will be no admission charge for Saturday’s game.

WNCC interim dean of student services Carla Stein will introduce the team and present each player and coach a token of good luck in wishing them good luck during their trek for a national title.

Melo said she is appreciative of all the support that the team is receiving.

“I think that is good for the team,” she said. “It all shouldn’t interfere with anything we are trying to do. In all reality, it should actually give us more motivation to go play hard, knowing we have that much support around us.”