The Western Nebraska Community College volleyball team’s quest for a second national title in three years will begin Thursday as the No. 3 ranked Cougars participate in its 11th straight NJCAA national tournament.There is definitely a sense of excitement in the Cougar players’ eyes. They are ready to get the show on the road.
“We are enthusiastic and really excited to be here,” sophomore outside hitter Kaleinani Kabalis said. “We are prepared to play the best of the 16 teams in the nation. We are really excited because one doesn’t know how much this means to us.”
The Cougars’ quest begins at 10 a.m. when they face the No. 15 seed Wallace State-Hanceville in the first round at the Mid-America Center in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The Lady Lions enter the tournament with a sparkling 34-4 record. WNCC enters the tournament with a 39-3 record. The winner moves on to play a quarterfinal contest at 4:30 p.m. Thursday against the winner of the Frank Phillips College or San Jacinto College. The loser falls into the consolation bracket and 9 a.m. match on Friday against the loser of the Frank Phillips/San Jacinto match.
Salt Lake Community College, ranked fourth in the final regular season polls, leap-frogged the Cougars to garner the No. 1 seed in the tournament. Salt Lake defeated the Cougars back in the first weekend of September. Salt Lake faces Spartanburg Methodist. Salt Lake and WNCC earned the No. 1 and 2 seeds after the top two teams in the polls, North Idaho College and Blinn College, lost in their regional tournaments. Blinn won the championship last year.
Kabalis said that it doesn’t bother the team that they are the No. 2 seed since you will have to play the best to be No. 1.
“It doesn’t matter if you are seeded one or two because you still have to play the best,” she said. “it will take heart and teamwork to win. We all just love volleyball and it will take everything we worked for throughout the season to make us No. 1.”
WNCC definitely holds the advantage of national tournament appearances over Wallace State. Wallace State is making its 7th tournament appearance all-time, the last time in 2003. The Cougars have been to the national tourney 12 times, including the last 11 years. WNCC has finished in the top four the last five years, including a national title in 2007 and a runner-up finish in 2006
Kabalis said the key to success is playing like the Mid-America Center is Cougar Palace.
“Our sophomores have been there and we tell the freshmen that they need to play like it is our gym and we won the gym; it is our house,” she said. “We just need to keep playing as a team and as won because we know how to get there.”
The Cougars are 15-1 while playing in that arena. They were 12-0 in 2007 including going 8-0 in the season-opening tournament and then 4-0 and a national title in November. Last year, the Cougars went 3-1 at the national tournament, falling to the University of Arkansas-Ft. Smith in the semifinals and then topped Iowa Western Community College in a five=set thriller for third place.
Kabalis said they can’t take any team lightly. They just have to go out and play their game and that includes staying up and having fun.
“When we have fun, scream and yell, it just gets us excited because it puts us in a more positive mindset,” she said. “I think if we play like how we are off the court [crazy], then no one can stop us because we can dominated everyone.”
The Cougars are playing some of their best volleyball after dominating the competition at the Region IX tournament. WNCC swept through Otero Junior College in the opener. They then defeated Northeastern Junior College in three straight in the semifinals. They then topped the Plainswomen in straight sets in the final. The sweep was especially sweet since the Plainswomen defeated the Cougars in five sets on Oct. 28 and stopping a 165-match win streak that WNCC held over Region IX competition that dated back to 2005.
“We have to continue to play like we did at regionals,” Kabalis said. “We played great as a team and played really good. We played smart and played all together. We played as one instead of 13.”
WNCC has to enter the tournament expecting to get the best from their opponents, and Wallace State is not easy team. Wallace State features a young squad with just four sophomores. They also have five players that stand 5-foot-10 or taller. Middle hitter Rachel Mitchell is the Lady Lions tallest player at 6-foot. Sophomore Cassie Daniels was named the Region XXII tournament most valuable player. Daniels had 40 set assists in the championship match. Danials is a 5-8 setter from Alabama.
WNCC features a potent lineup including Kabalis who is the nation’s leading hitter and one of only nine Cougar hitters to amass over 1,000 career kills. WNCC also has the services sophom0re setter Sabina Piegza, who missed the final two weeks of the regular season with a knee injury.
The one good thing that came out of Piegza’s injury is a number of other players stepped up. The Cougars now have a very versatile team that can run either a 5-1 one offense or a 6-2 with freshmen Kuulei Kabalis and Sierra Schmidt seeing time at setter.
The Cougars also saw some strong libero play from freshman Emily Hoehn and sophomore Cami Wiemer. Weimer came up big in the two NJC regional tournament matches with some clutch saves. WNCC also have received a balanced offensive output from Kaleinani Kabalis, Kathryn Stock, Brooke Blomenkamp, Tania Torres and Ariel Austin at the regional tournament.
Kaleinani Kabalis said the team’s depth definitely has been one of the reason’s this team has posted a 39-3 record.
“We have been successful this year because we all have the same mindset. When it comes to the court, we know what we want and we go for it. We don’t hold hack,” she said. “We are all equal in talent as well and that is good because we play at the same level. We push each other to be good. If someone is down, we push each other to be at the others level or push each other to be at the level that we are suppose to be at .”
The contests can be heard live on Kozy 101.3 FM or on the Internet at www.kozy1013.com. The tournament will also be video streamed this season on the NJCAA website at www.njcaa.org.
First round action match-ups include No. 3 Iowa Western (40-4) against No. 14 Temple College (22-21), No. 6 MSU-West Plains (24-8) against No. 11 Northwest (Wyo.) College (25-8), No. 7 San Jacinto (30-7) against No. 10 Frank Phillips College (28-10), No. 1 Salt Lake (27-7) against No. 16 Spartanburg Methodist (10-17),No. 9 Hillsborough Community College (29-8) against No. 8 Hutchinson (30-8), No. 5 Miami Dade (29-4) against No. 12 Panola College (26-7), and No. 4 College of Southern Idaho (28-6) against No. 13 Seminole State (22-15). The championship is slated for Saturday at 5:30 p.m. (MST).
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