The The top-rated Cougars, 37-1, recorded 11 of those ace serves in the first game, four straight from Nayka Benitez to open the game and then seven of nine points by Soriana Pacheco to close the game, for the first-game win.
“Our serving, even when we didn’t have ace serves, kept them out of their offense most of the night,” WNCC coach Chris Green said. “Soriana and Nayka had some nice jump serves, but even our float servers, Stacie and Daphine, both pretty well. Our servers kept their passers from getting the ball to their setter and that is a big key in winning a volleyball match.”
EWC coach Verl Petsch said his team didn’t have an answer to the Cougars serving and overall talent on the other side of the net.
“They are an outstanding ball club. It was a situation where we had to play way above our heads to beat them with not only the experience they have but their physical size,” he said. “We got served off the court basically. From what I show they had 26 ace serves and that is a situation that you can’t compete. They just took us out of the match early. Fortunately that is part of the game.”
Petsch is hoping his team takes something positive from Monday’s game heading into a home stand this weekend against
“I am hopeful that they can learn from this. We are going to try to build from this because we have seven matches left and we would like to take something from this in terms of challenging ourselves and elevating our game to a level that we can compete with some of the other teams we have coming up. We obviously won’t be on the court with any talent of this nature the rest of this year. You have to give the Cougars credit for taking us out of our execution.”
The Cougars definitely rose to the occasion Monday night, and they needed to with plenty of big matches coming up this week. The biggest one, though, is tonight when they face No. 17 Northeastern Junior College at
“We are excited about the week and the players were very excited to play EWC. I think we came out and played with some intensity,” Green said. “It has been a little while since we did that at home, but having a team like EWC come in who is just across the border, they brought out the best in us.”
Plus, the crowd made a huge factor in the contest with its enthusiasm for the No. 1 team in the nation.
“We had a big crowd because of the high school game before hand and the crowd was really into it,” Green said. “I think as far as intensity and enthusiasm, we will have that [today]. We need to have that enthusiasm every time we step onto the court. We did tonight and hopefully we can do that the rest of the season.”
WNCC quickly took EWC out of the game in the opening set. Benitez served made it 5-0 on four ace serves followed by Daphine Da Silva with three points for an 18-7 lead. A few rotations later, Pacheco finished off the first game with a nine point service run, including seven ace serves.
WNCC kept its enthusiasm going in the second game running to a 10-2 lead on three Benitez points. EWC came back on a Sara Gipfert kill and then two Josey Peterson service points, aided by a block and kill by Kelsey Stout, for a 16-7 deficit.
Peterson’s run, though, didn’t last long as Fatima Balza had four straight points, including four ace serves for a 19-7 lead. WNCC kept playing strong throughout the lineup with timely killing and nice serving for the 30-16 win.
The final game was close at the start as the Lancers trailed 3-2. That was until two different 4-point service runs by Shawntell Jones and Stacie Meisner opened up the game at 12-3. The Lancers did mount a late run on two nice kills by Tricia Dorshorst and two service points by Cassidy Carlisle, but it wasn’t enough as a Benitez ace served finished off the match.
Pacheco led the Cougars with 20 points, eight aces, three blocks, four kills and 27 set assists. Also for WNCC, Balza had four points, three aces, five blocks and eight kills; Eichler had five blocks and seven kills; Chelsea Lyles had for kills and one block; Da Silva had three blocks, 11 points and six digs; Jones had five blocks, five points and three kills; Benitez had 10 points, six aces and seven digs; Bauza had two blocks and seven kills; Meisner had nine points and Kendra Schauermann had four digs and three points.
The Lancers were paced by Stout with three kills and two blocks, followed by Gipfert with five blocks; Dorshorst with three kills and seven digs; Andrea Hockley with two blocks; Peterson with four points; Lora Hill with eight set assists and Sarah Blausey with six set assists.
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