WNCC volleyball team opens season with south sub-region tourney

Western Nebraska Community College sophomore Kendra Schauermann remembers vividly watching Iowa Western Community College celebrate a national volleyball title. Meanwhile, Schauermann and her teammates were watching teary-eyed after losing to Iowa Western in the title match.

This season, the Cougar volleyball team plans on being the team celebrating, not watching from the sidelines.

“Oh my gosh, I am excited for the season to get started,” the sophomore from Windsor, Colo., said. “I can’t even believe it is already back around again. With last year’s disappointing ending, I am really excited to get started again. Hopefully we will have a better ending to this season. We have been working so hard the last three weeks with two-a-days, running the monument, running the stadium, lifting at 5:30 in the morning and I think we are ready to get started and play games instead of being on the court practicing.”

The Cougars open the 2007 season today as they host the South Sub-region tournament at Cougar Palace. Tournament action kicks off today at 5 p.m. with Lamar Community College taking on McCook Community College and Otero Junior College meeting Trinidad State Junior College.WNCC plays at 6:30 p.m. against McCook, followed by a match-up with Lamar at 7:45 p.m. Northeastern Junior College is the other team playing in the tournament.

The tournament continues Saturday with WNCC facing Trinidad State at 11 a.m., Otero Junior College at 12:15 p.m. and then Northeastern Colorado at 2:45, which will be the prime contest of the tournament with two top-20 ranked teams from a year ago tangling on the court.

“I think that will be a pretty big contest because that is really our only competition in the region of who goes onto nationals.” Schauermann said. “It is always fun to play them early to see all the talent they brought in, and to see how the season will work out for us. We play them about three or four more times before regionals.”