Western Nebraska Community College's Kaleinani Kabalis has never seen a serving performance like she displayed Saturday afternoon against Trinidad State Junior College. The 5-foot-9 outside hitter from Hilo, Hawaii, served 18 straight points including 10 aces in helping the Cougars blitz the Trojans 25-1 in the opening set. WNCC went on to claim the next two sets 25-11-25-12 for their 35th win of the season.
"This was probably the best serving performance that we had in a long time," WNCC coach Giovana Melo said. "Serving is something we have been working on. We are a good serving team and I know that, we just had to focus and be consistent. We were consistent today and served really well."
What really impressed Melo was the way her team won. She said she never seen a team only allow one point in a set in rally scoring.
"That first-game performance was really impressive," she said. "I have never seen that happen before in rally scoring."
Kabalis finished the match with 21 points and 10 aces. The team, however finished with 27 aces. Gregner Quinones had 15 points and four aces, while Brooke Blomenkamp had nine points and five aces and Gabrielle Aviles had seven points and three aces.
"She served really well and every single person served really well," Melo said of the team's performance, which only netted just two missed serves on 64 of 66 serving. The two missed serves came in the third set.
The story of the match, though, was the first game serving for the Cougars. Fatiba Balza record the first points for WNCC with a kill. Quinones then served five straight points to push the lead to 6-0. Trinidad recorded a side out for a point.
Sabina Piegza then dumped a set down to the ground for a 7-1 lead. That put Kabalis at the serving line and the Hawaiian's jump serve was on fire as she had at one time six straight aces with many that painted the back line. The closest Kabalis got to losing her serve came with the score 22-1 and both teams rallied back and forth a couple times before Balza hammered home a kill. Kabalis then served out the game.
Kabalis said that she was shocked that she had 18 straight points. She added that she had more aces serves in high school, but nothing compares to the performance she had in the first game.
The second set was just as dominating from the service line for the Cougars. Nayka Benitez started the second set where Kabalis left off in the first game with an ace serve. Benitez, though, had her service rally stopped after just one point.
One rotation later, Blomenkamp served up five points for a 7-1 lead behind two Cami Weimer kills. Trinidad fought back on two service points by Loren Gonzalez and then two kills by Katherine Harris to slice the lead to 12-6.
That was as close as the Trojans got as Gabriele Aviles served six straight points, including three aces for a 21-7 lead on the way to a 25-11 win.
The third game was nip and tack there for a while. After Quinones served five straight points to give WNCC an 8-2 lead, the Trojans fought back slicing the lead to 10-8 on a Felicia Rael point. Kabalis then changed the complexion of the game in a heartbeat with a kill. Kabalis then stepped back to the service line and served three straight points before registering the team's first missed serve of the match.
It didn't matter, because moment later, Benitez recorded two ace serves for a 17-9 lead. Blomenkamp also added two aces to push the lead to 21-11. And, Quinones put a fitting end to the match as the freshman from Puerto Rick recorded to ace serves to end the match.
With the way the team was serving there wasn't too many other highlights. Balza finished with 13 kills and three blocks, while Kabalis had four kills and four digs. Also for WNCC, Naomi Flinders, Cami Weimer and Sabina Piegza each had three kills. Piegza also added three blocks and 19 set assists, while Benitez had four points, four aces and 13 digs.
The Cougars finished made a perfect week since climbing to No. 1 in the country, going 4-0 in sub-region matches. But, it gets tougher next week as the Cougars have a Highway 26 showdown at Eastern Wyoming College on Tuesday and then they take a three-day trip making a stop in McCook on Thursday before competing in the Seward County Invite, where the Cougars suffered one of their losses last season.
"I am really pleased with how every single one of them performed this week," she said. "They all did really well. I am really happy with them."
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