WEST PLAINS, Mo. – The Western Nebraska Community College left little doubt in the minds of the Cape Fear Community College players of who the better volleyball team was Monday afternoon in the first round of the National Junior College Athletic Association Volleyball Tournament.
The Cougar’s Leticia Kuhn finished with a double-double and the team combined for 16 ace serves in routing the Sea Devils 30-10, 30-17, 30-15 to earn a trip to the Elite Eight. The Cougars advance to play Frank Phillips College, who were a four-game winner over Hillsborough Community College 27-30, 30-25, 30-24, 30-27 today at 11 a.m.
WNCC coach Chris Green said they will need to play well in all their games from now on out to be able to move into the national championship match on Wednesday.
“I think we passed and served well in the first game. The second game we had a little bit of a lapse. We didn’t stay focused,” he said. “We maybe weren’t as pumped up as we were in the first game. But, overall it was a pretty good match.”
The Cougars came out and dominated the Sea Devils from start to finish in game one. And, it was a plethora of players that got the job done. Barbara Freitas opened the game with four service points, including two aces, to give WNCC a 7-2 lead.
A couple rotations later, Kendra Schauermann had six straight points to push the Cougars lead to a commanding 16-4 lead, and they continued playing tough the rest of the way until Freitas and Shawntell Jones finished off the game on a block.
The second game was a little more scarier; that was until Bianca Rivera stepped to the service line with the Cougars trailing 8-7. Rivera, with her sizzling jump serves, served up five points, three of which were aces, for a 12-8 lead. Soriana Pacheco closed out the Sea Devils with two ace serves for the 30-17 win.
WNCC flexed it’s depth even more in the third game running all over the Sea Devils. Schauermann helped the Cougars jump out to a 9-2 lead on five kills, including a floor-denting kill by Rivera. Moments later, Freitas had four points to push the lead to 18-6.
Cape Fear mounted a comeback as Stephanie Ford served up two straight ace serves, but Leticia Kuhn silenced the run with a kill and then three straight points for a 21-9. Several rotations later, Jillian Kelly had the final two points for the match.
Kuhn paced the team with 14 kills, 10 digs, four points and two aces. Jenny Eichler also had a good match, finishing with 10 kills, while Freitas had nine kills, seven points and two aces. Also for the Cougars, Pacheco finished with 38 set assists, eight points, six aces, four digs, five kills and two blocks; Schauermann collected 16 points, one ace and six digs; Rivera netting eight points, four aces, six digs and four kills; Stacie Meisner serving four points; and Jones with two blocks.
Green said while the team had 16 ace serves, they had a number of missed serves, 13 to be exact. That is one area that needs to be corrected for today’s matches.
“We had quite a few missed serves and it wasn’t from our jump serving, it was from our other serves,” he said. “When we are aggressive and miss serves, I am not too concerned. But when we are missing serves that are not the aggressive type of mistakes, then those are the bad ones.”
And, today’s matches will be a tad more difficult then Monday’s opener.
“We know the top eight seeds are very good and the 9-13 seeds are also good, so we will have to play a lot better then we did today,” he said. “We will have to play at a high level all three games
instead of one game.”
In other tournament action, there were a few upsets in the first round. On the Cougar’s side of the bracket, Hutchinson Community College upended last year’s national runner-up with a thrilling five-game win 30-23, 30-20, 29-31, 21-30, 18-16, while North Idaho College defeated Western Wyoming Community College 30-17, 25-30, 30-19, 30-16.
The other side of the bracket saw Iowa Western Community College crushing Temple College 30-21, 30-24, 30-9; Blinn College scurrying past 26-30, 30-25, 30-23, 30-27; San Jacinto College taking out the University of Arkansas-Ft. Smith 34-32, 26-30, 30-25, 22-30, 15-5; and Missouri State-West Plains defeating Northwest Shoals Community College 30-12, 30-19, 30-16. In elimination matches Monday night, Salt Lake took care of Temple College 30-16, 30-28, 30-17 and Ft-Smith sent Northwest Shoals home 30-23, 30-23, 30-21, 30-14. The late matches Monday say Miami-Dade winnng in five games over Western Wyoming and Hillsborugh beating Cape Fear in three.
Today’s schedule has Iowa Western facing Blinn and San Jacinto meeting MSU-West Plains at 9 a.m.; WNCC taking on Frank Phillips and Hutchinson meeting North Idaho at 11 a.m.; Salt Lake taking on Arkansas-Ft. Smith and the winners of Today’s late matches at 1 p.m.; the losers of the morning games taking state at 34 p.m. followed by the winners of today’s morning games at 5 p.m.
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