The Western Nebraska Community College volleyball team got a little defensive Tuesday night in their contest with Eastern Wyoming College at Cougar Palace.
The Cougars, who won seven matches last week, including wins over three ranked teams, stayed at No. 4 in this week’s NJCAA poll. Tuesday night, the Cougars put on a defensive clinic in shutting down any hint of a Lancer upset bid as they won in straight sets 25-12, 25-6, 25-15 to move to 22-2 on the season.
“Defense and pancake saves are some of things that we have been working on because we haven’t been that great on defense lately,” WNCC coach Giovana Melo said. “I think it was good that they brought it out today, playing good defense and playing good volleyball.”
WNCC finished the match with close to 10 pancake saves, with five or six coming in the first set along. It is those long rallies that the Cougars won that set the tone for the match for both teams.
“We just didn’t have things go our way tonight in a lot of areas,” EWC coach Verl Petsch said. “Even some of those long rallies ended in some unusual type rolls of the ball. I really thought the rallies were pretty good tonight, but we didn’t score points on those long rallies and you would like to end the rallies on your behalf.”
Petsch said that his team miss fired in many areas on the night, especially the passing and hitting areas. He said you can’t win that way.
“We didn’t have much of an offense and that goes back to not passing the ball. We were pretty lethargic, we just didn’t move like you have to move like a team like the Cougars are,” he said. “When you don’t move and play better floor position, you are going to have these kind of problems. We will have to work really hard on some of those fundamentals.”
WNCC didn’t have a problem raising their energy level one bit as they controlled the tempo of the match from the beginning as the match was only tied three times – twice in the first at 1-1 and 2-2 and once in the second at 1-1.
In the first, Sabina Piegza served the Cougars to a 6-2 lead and then Kaleinani Kabalis had two straight aces for a 11-3 lead. EWC bounced back as Sammie Perkins served three points and Ariel Gass had a kill to slice the lead to 14-10. The lead was shortlived as Kathryn Stock served six straight points, including getting two backrow kills. WNCC ended the first set as Piegza had a pancake save to let Stock hammer home the set point.
The second set was all WNCC as Paulina and Sabina Piegza combined for 10 points to move the Cougars to a 12-2 lead. Moments later, Kabalis had four points with two aces and then Emily Hoehn served out the set with six straight points. The Cougars received clutch kills from Gering graduate Whitney Roth with two back-to-back kills and some monster kills from Ariel Austin.
WNCC started the third set where they left off in the second, Stock got the opening kill and then Roth served two points for a 3-0 lead. Sabina Piegza added to the lead with three points, 7-1. Kuulei Kabalis served up five points, including two aces, along with two kills from Roth and a thundering kill from Austin for the Cougar’s largest lead of the game, 14-4.
EWC kept fighting as Perkins served three straight points with two kills from Gass and a kill from Chelsi Lemmon to slice the lead to 15-8. EWC kept playing tough, cutting the lead to 16-10 on an ace serve. WNCC quickly rebounded as Piegza had a long-rally killing kill and then Cami Weimer served four points to push the lead to 21-10.
Alexa Welsh tried bringing the Lancers back with two points to within 21-13, but two Stock kills followed by Austin’s fifth kill of the match ended things for the Cougars.
WNCC had several players stand out as Stock led the team with 12 kills, nine points, four aces, and four digs. Kaleinani Kabalis finished with seven kills, nine points and four aces; while Austin and Roth each had five kills, and Tania Torres had four kills and five blocks.
Also for the Cougars, Brooke Blomenkamp had two kills; Paulina Piegza had four points; Sabina Piegza had 14 points, two aces, 38 set assists, and 11 digs; Kuulei Kabalis had six digs, six points and three aces; Hoehn had six points and five digs; and Weimer had three digs and four points.
Gass paced the Lancers with three kills, two stuff blocks and seven digs; while Erica Coats had three kills; Alexia Welsh had four set assists and three points; and Sammie Perkins had seven points.
The Cougars will next be in action this weekend when they begin sub-region play on Thursday against Otero Junior College followed by stops at Lamar and Trinidad State. The Lancers will be at home Thursday when they host North Platte Community College.
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