WNCC volleyball wins final home match, improves to 43-2 on the season

More photos of the match are on the Cougar Athletic photo album under the Volleyball Folder. The address of the album is wncccougars.albumpost.com

For the six Western Nebraska Community College sophomores, Tuesday’s home finale was emotional.

Sophomores Jennifer Eichler, Shawntell Jones, Soriana Pacheco, Kendra Schauermann, Cassie Vrooman and Stacie Meisner put all the emotion aside of their final match in Cougar Palace and helped the Cougars to a 30-13, 30-20, 30-8 win over Laramie County Community College.

"There was a lot of emotion out there. We all are really close these past two years, especially last year with most of the team being freshmen and with us all coming back this year,” Meisner said. “We really enjoyed our two years here, so there was a lot of emotion of happy and sad.

The six sophomores racked up a 99-4 record in two years so far, after Tuesday night’s win over Laramie County. WNCC is now 43-2 on the season and used a balanced attack in getting the win over a decent Laramie County squad.

Meisner said the second game wasn’t pretty, but they finished strong, registering the 30-8 win in game three.

“Our second game was that good, but we came out in the third game and we really wanted to go out on a good note since this was our last game at Cougar Palace. We made sure that third game was really good and we accomplished that.”

Jones and Meisner paced the Cougars from the service line recording 16 and 14 points each. Jones added six ace serves in the win as well as three kills and four blocks. Meisner added three digs in her last match at Cougar Palace.

In fact, all six sophomores contributed. Jennifer Eichler was her typical self finishing with seven kills and two blocks; Schauermann had six points and four digs; Pacheco finished with seven points, three digs, 26 set assists and three kills; and Vrooman had one block.

The first-year players also came up big Tuesday night. Aida Bauza finished with 12 kills and three digs; Fatima Balza had nine kills and six blocks; Chelsea Lyles had seven kills and four blocks; Nayka Benitez had 11 digs and 10 points; and Daphine Da Silva had seven points.

The Cougars, though, started slow as both teams were knotted at six in the first game. Then, the Cougars strong serving came alive as Schauermann added two points, followed by Jones with a 3-point service run and Da Silva with a six points run. Schauermann finished off the Golden Eagles with the final two points.

Game two was a little iffy for the Cougars. LCCC came out and took a 10-6 lead on a Kodi Cartwright ace serve. LCCC kept hanging with WNCC leading 14-13 on a Dayane Souza ace serve.

Finally the Cougars came alive as Pacheco served for four points, followed by Schauermann with three points for a 22-16 lead. Jones continued the strong serving with a 6-point run, before the Cougars won the game on a Golden Eagle missed serve.

The third game was all WNCC. Laramie County did, however, start strong as they trailed 4-3 on a Cougar missed serve. The Cougars rebounded quickly on a Eichler kill and then Jones went to work again from the service line with eight straight points, including three aces, for a 13-3 lead.

Meisner added to the lead moments later with a 12-point serving spree for a commanding 26-4 lead. WNCC finished off the match on a Benitez ace serve for the Cougars 43^rd win of the season.

WNCC will be back in action this weekend when they face Trinidad State on Friday and then Otero and Lamar on Saturday. The Cougars wrap up the regular season Oct. 24 when they travel to Northeastern Junior College.

“We are looking forward to this weekend. Every time we step onto the court, we are hoping to get better and better,” Meisner said. “We are going to use these next four matches to prep for regionals and hopefully get us ready for nationals. Every step of the way we are getting better every match.

“After this past weekend, we realized that there are some things that we still need to work on. That loss might be a good thing to get back into the gym and practice a few days and really fine tune some things, that the loss pointed out that we need to work on before we get down to Council Bluffs.”