The Western Nebraska Community College volleyball team will be aiming to capture its 12th Region IX championship this weekend in La Junta, Colo., but it won’t be an easy task to accomplish the feat.
WNCC begins tournament play Friday at 11 a.m. when they face the winner of the Otero and Trinidad State match, which will be played Thursday at 7 p.m. The other first round contest on Thursday pits Lamar against McCook at 5 p.m. with the winner facing NJC Friday at 9 a.m.
Ariel Austin, a sophomore from Woodland Park, Colo., said while everyone is predicting the Cougars to advance to the national tournament, the team is taking it one match at a time.
“I feel a little pressure just because we trying to keep the tradition going of winning regionals, especially since this will be the 12th year of winning it,” she said. “We are focusing on one game at a time. We know we will end up playing NJC at least once or twice. We just have to stay focused. Everybody needs to give it their all and we need to play consistent in order for us to come away with a win, especially with our serves.”
There is no doubt that the Cougar women enter the tournament as the favorite, sporting a 36-3 record and a No. 4 national ranking. WNCC has won 17 straight matches, including sweeping past Iowa Western Community College and Northeastern Junior College, two top 15 teams, last week. NJC, who is No. 9 in the nation, earned the No. 2 seed in the tournament by falling to WNCC in five sets at Sterling before being swept at Cougar Palace last Thursday.
Anything can happen in the double-elimination regional tournament and Austin said the team is not taking anything for granted. They have one thing on their mind and that is to make it to the national tournament, which will be played Nov. 18-20 in West Plains, Mo.
One of the biggest wake-up calls for the Cougar team came in late September when they lost to Western Wyoming Community College at Cougar Palace. Since that loss, the Cougars have won 17 straight matches, including wins over several ranked teams.
Austin said that loss might have been good for the team.
“I think that loss woke us up, especially since it was a loss at home,” she said. “It was disappointing and we learned from it. We haven’t lost since. We still have our rollercoasters, but we really need to focus and stay at the level that we know we can play at.”
That wasn’t the case last week when they took care of Iowa Western and Northeastern Colorado rather easily. Austin said that is the way they should be playing all the time.
“It was a real successful week for us. We were very happy about it,” she said. “We just have to carry on and we need to keep that playing level to what we played at last week against Iowa Western and NJC. We need to bring even more to the court.”
The Cougars haven’t lost a first-round contest in the 11 years that they have won the regional title. A win Friday morning will more than likely set them up in a 5 p.m. Friday contest against NJC. The championship is slated for Saturday at 1 p.m. with an if-necessary game slated for afterwards.
Austin said the difference between winning and losing is just one degree, something that head coach Giovana Melo has talked about by showing the team a video about how one extra degree makes all the difference.
“That one degree more for us is everything,” Austin said. “Everybody has to give it their all so we can be that extra one degree.”
The Cougars will leave Thursday for regionals and how they perform all hinges on the attitude they bring to practice on Wednesday.
“This week in practice we have had our ups and downs and [Wednesday] is our last practice before we start regionals,” Austin said. “We have to work hard in today’s practice to prove that we want it, not just for coach but for ourselves. We are hoping to go to nationals, but we have to focus on regionals first.”
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