CONCORDIA, Kansas — The Cloud County Community College volleyball team concluded its season Wednesday night, falling at home to Dodge City Community College in four sets: 16-25, 25-16, 25-18 and 25-22. 

The T-Birds (4-28 overall, 1-15 KJCCC), playing with the emotions of Sophomore Night, produced a performance against Dodge City (19-14 overall, 5-11 KJCCC) that was a microcosm of their 2017 season as they showed flashes of great talent, but were unable to maintain that level of execution throughout the evening.

"I told the girls afterwards that it is amazing what passion you can have when there's the chance something, an opportunity, that you have today is in jeopardy of being gone tomorrow," said Cloud County head coach, Molly Skocny. "I was proud of the way the girls fought and I thought, at times, we saw some really great things and the girls looked great in that first set. We saw some good things in the third and fourth sets, as well, but collectively it wasn't enough."

Cloud County came out firing in Set One, powering down 17 kils in the set, led by five from sophomore Katelyn Ruth, and led by as many as 10 points en route to a 25-16 win.

Dodge City, courtesy of a 10-3 run to close out the set, countered with a 25-16 win of its own in Set Two to even the match back at 1-1. Cloud County was limited to seven kills on 34 attempts.

The T-Birds were able to shake it off and compete toe-to-toe with the visiting Conquistadors over the final two sets, but struggled to string points together to take or build on a lead as Dodge City held on for set wins of 25-18 and 25-22, respectively, to conclude the match.

All seven of Cloud County's graduating sophomores fared well in their final match inside Arley Bryant Gymnasium as middle hitter Elizabeth Nobert led all T-Birds with 12 kills and Ruth joined her in double-figures with 10 kills.

Drew Mann and Irem Bat each finished with eight kills apiece, and sophomore right-side hitter Christen Greving chipped in six kills.

Defensive specialists Brooke Baird and Mallory Eckert produced 10 digs and eight digs, respectively.

"It's definitely going to be a huge void losing two middles (Ruth and Nobert) who played huge roles both seasons and with the rest of the sophomore group, they've been a really neat group," Skocny said. "We've had Drew with us for three years since she was a redshirt. She provided a hilarious, humorous teammate for the girls. Each of them had something they brought to the table and we'll definitely miss them."

Cloud County also received nice boosts from a handful of freshmen on Wednesday as setter Kamryn Stark set a career high with 42 assists, while libero Britt Michaelis led all T-Birds with a career-high 29 digs. Freshman outside hitter Giovanna Fundaro was also solid in the back row with three service aces and 15 digs.

The trio figure to be big parts of Cloud County's rebuilding efforts heading into the offseason and the 2018 campaign.

"Leadership development will be something we spend a lot of time on. It's classroom stuff, not even physical, which we will also work on, but we will do extensive leadership development," Skocny said. "We'll focus on our communication and our emotions because I think that has been a huge void. Some players have to learn how to do it and we're going to teach them that."