COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa – The look on the faces of the Western Community College volleyball team said it all; their bid for a national title was abruptly halted after suffering a heartbreaking five-set loss to Missouri State-West Plains. What makes the 25-18, 17-25, 16-25, 25-23, 15-8 loss hard to take was the Cougars were in the driver’s seat to compete in their third national tournament final in four years. The Cougars held a 20-14 lead in the fourth set before the Grizzlies outscored the Cougars 26-11 the rest of the way. The Grizzlies fierce comeback punched their ticket into the national championship game today against the College of Southern Idaho. CSI topped the No. 1 seed Salt Lake Community College 21-25, 25-17, 25-23, 16-25, 15-10.
Salt Lake and WNCC will battle for third place today at 3:30 p.m. Last year, the Cougars fell in the semi-finals and then topped Iowa Western Community College in five sets for third place.
While the mood on the Cougar’s team is one of heartbreak, they realize they have one more game to pick things up and bring home a trophy back to western Nebraska.
“I don’t really know what happened,” sophomore Brooke Blomenkamp, a Gering graduate, said. “I do know that everyone gave their hearts out there today. Tomorrow is just a new day. We need to forget about today and move on.”
The only reason for the sudden turnaround that Blomenkamp or WNCC coach Giovana Melo offered was maybe the team thought they had the match won too early. Still, as much as the Cougars were hitting on all cylinders in sets two and three, and the first half of the fourth set, it is a mystery of why the energy key was turned off with the team leading 20-14 in the fourth set.
“Maybe we got ahead of ourselves and thought we had it,” Blomenkamp said. “We kind of let the game slip away. We tried to take back control but by then it was too late.”
Melo, who was a loss of words after the game, was still trying to figure out what happened.
“I think we thought we had it won and then I think we got too excited and let it go,” she said.
The Cougars could have easily gave up after dropping the first set 25-18 after leading 8-3 on a Cami Weimer ace serve.
WNCC quickly turned things around in set two and it was the Cougars hitting game and defense that stepped up. WNCC combined for 18 kills in the second set and it was two big kills from Blomenkamp and Kaleinani Kabalis that pushed the Cougars to a 15-10 lead. WNCC opened up a 20-14 lead and kept hitting on all cylinders for the 25-17 win.
The Cougars played extremely well in the third set, racing to a 7-3 lead on three Kathryn Stock service points. Later, Sabina Piegza served up seven straight points for a 17-6 lead. The Grizzlies came back to cut the lead to 20-15, but WNCC received a kill from Paulina Piegza and three Weimer service points to win 25-18.
The Cougars took control of the fourth set early as Weimer had three points for a 4-0 lead. West Plains came back to tied the set at 7-7 only to see Tania Torres hammer home two kills and team up with Blomenkamp on a block to help WNCC to a 16-10 lead.
The Cougars pushed the lead to 20-14 late and led 21-15 before the Grizzlies Patricia Figueiredo had three service points to cut the deficit to 21-19. West Plains tied the score at 22-22 on two Perla Quintana. Paulina Piegza hammered home a kill to put WNCC up 23-22, but the Grizzlies scored the last three points to force a fifth game.
In the fifth set, WNCC held a 4-3 lead, but that was the last time they would lead as the Grizzlies’ Janel Glidden had five service points for a 9-4 lead and WNCC could never get back on track.
Melo said that her team fought hard, especially to come back to win sets two and three, and expects her team to rebound.
“I think we started to play with a lot of heart in the second set, but we just let it go,” she said. “We showed a lot of character all year [in tough situations] so I am sure they are going to come back and play hard.”
WNCC had four players net double-figure kills. Kaleinani Kabalis finished with 21 kills, followed by Paulina Piegza with 16, Kathryn Stock with 13, Blomenkamp with 10, and Tania Torres with six. Torres also had three solo blocks, while Paulina Piegza had two solo blocks.
Also for WNCC, Sabina Piegza had 57 set assists, six points and nine digs; Kaleinani Kabalis had eight points and 22 digs; Kuulei Kabalis had seven points and 19 digs; Weimer had nine points, two aces, and 10 digs; Stock had seven points and 11 digs; and Paulina Piegza had five points and three digs.
The tournament today has Hutchinson facing San Jacinto for ninth place at 11 a.m., Frank Phillips facing Hillsborough for seventh place at 11 a.m. Iowa Western taking on Miami Dade for fifth place at 1:30 p.m., WNCC meeting Salt Lake for third at 3:30 p.m. and Southern Idaho facing West Plains for the championship at 5:30 p.m.
No comments:
Post a Comment