Oct. 21, 2011 -- Danika Youngblood finished with 15 kills and 15 digs and the No. 2 Western Nebraska Community College volleyball survived a five set win against No. 14 Northeastern Junior College Friday at Cougar Palace.
The Cougars 16-25, 25-15, 25-19, 19-25, 15-7 sub-region win over the Plainswomen keeps WNCC undefeated in the sub-region at 9-0 while NJC falls to 8-1. The two squads will battle next Wednesday at Sterling, Colo., to decide the No. 1 seed entering the regional tournament.
Friday’s contest was definitely a slugfest between two top 15 ranked teams and many times the Plainswomen were in prime position to handing the Cougars their second defeat of the year.
Youngblood, who had five kills in the fifth set, said they played alright, but they need to play with more energy in all the sets instead of the three sets that they won.
“We were kind of inconsistent, which we need to work on,” the 5-foot-10 freshman said. “We need these close games because it is really good for us after going 3-0 for so long to start facing good teams because we will be facing good teams at nationals. It is better to get that competition now then at regionals and nationals.”
NJC gave the Cougars a run for their money taking the first set rather easily 25-16 as Mackenzie Krause had five service points at the end for the easy 25-16 win.
The second set started out close as NJC trailed 9-7 on a Morgan Woodruff kill. After that, though, Alex Rivera served up four points and then two Tasha Meyer points pushed the lead to 20-12. Youngblood finished off the set with three points, including a booming backrow kill to even the match at a game apiece.
WNCC opened the third set by racing to a 16-7 lead behind a Megan Johnson and Fernanda Goncalves block. NJC came back as Woodruff hammered home a kill and then served five points to slice the lead to 16-13. Debora Araujo ended the scoring streak with a booming kill and then WNCC went up 22-16 on a Youngblood kill.
NJC cut the deficit to 22-19 on a Mayara Prestes kill and two Mandi Velasquez points, only to see WNCC win the third set on two Rivera service points.
NJC led from start to finish in the fourth set, running to a 13-8 lead and later 17-10 behind three points from Kirsten Schumacher. WNCC never could get into the set as the Plainswomen force a deciding fifth set on a Prestes kill.
The fifth set started as each team traded points. WNCC finally started to put some distance between them and the Plainswomen as Araujo and Youngblood each had a kill for a 6-4 lead. After a kill from Carolina Berger to cut the lead to 6-5, WNCC Goncalves went on a 6-point service run behind three smashing kills from Araujo for a 13-5 lead. Lais Soares finished off the match with a rightside kill.
Youngblood said that when they lost that first set, they knew that they needed to come back even harder. Then, when the match went to a fifth set, Youngblood said that Coach Giovana Melo told them they pick up the energy.
“She just told us to go hard and have lots of energy and play together,” she said.
I big difference in that contest was serving. NJC practically handed the win to the Cougars with 17 missed serves. WNCC had just seven missed serves, but they also had 12 hitting errors.
“NJC had really aggressive serves in the beginning,” she said, “and that was because our passing was struggling a lot. They then started missing their serves and gave us a lot of points.”
Several Cougars finished with a double-double night. Youngblood led the way with 15 kills, 15 digs, two blocks and four points; followed by Aruajo with 15 kills, 11 digs, two aces, and six points. Also for the Cougars, Soares had 10 kills, three blocks, six digs, an ace, and seven points; Goncalves had three kills, 18 digs, 40 set assists, and eight points; Megan Johnson had four kills and five blocks; Taylor VanderWerff had five kills; Dani Grace had 10 digs; and Rivera had 14 digs and 11 points.
WNCC will finish the regular season home portion of their contest when they host Casper College on Saturday at 7 p.m. The Cougars will also honor the five sophomores before the match. The Cougars will then have a road trip on Wednesday at Northeastern Junior College before they host the Region IX volleyball tournament Nov. 3-5.
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