PARSONS, Kan. – Needing wins in both the fourth and fifth set, the Cloud County Community College volleyball team would battle their way back to a five-set road victory over Labette Community College in Parsons, Kansas on Thursday, January 28th.

The victory moves Cloud County to 1-1 overall on the year and 1-1 in Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference action while winning their fifth straight match in the past three years over the Cardinals who fell to 0-2 overall and 0-2 in the KJCCC.

Taking the first set by a score of 25-14, Cloud County would take an early lead in set two by a score of 6-3 before seeing Labette battle back to tie things at 9-9 as the two teams would go on to exchange the next six points. The Cardinals would manage to claim a 19-16 lead to force a T-Bird timeout as the deficit would grow to 21-16 for CCCC before a 6-1 run tied things up at 22 to force a Labette timeout. In the final points of the match, Cloud County and Labette would go back and forth with ties at 23 all, 24 all, and 25 all before the Cardinals would string together the final two points of the set to tie the match at one set apiece.

Another tight set early on would see Cloud County overcome deficits of 5-4 and 9-6 to grab the lead at 15-13 and force a Cardinal timeout as the T-Birds would finally be able to string together some points. The Cardinals would keep within striking distance of CCCC before eventually snagging the final three points to go on and win the third by a score of 25-23.

Neither team would be able to gain any breathing room in the fourth as both squads would keep the other from going ahead by more than two points throughout the opening 25 points of the set before Labette would eventually manage to go up 16-13 to force a CCCC timeout. The lead would be short-lived as Cloud County would scratch their way back to tie things at 20-20 before allowing the Cardinals to score the next two points to go up 22-20. Needing a set victory to force a winner-take-all fifth set, a 5-2 T-Bird run would put CCCC at set point which would come on the next serve for a 26-24 victory.

The momentum from the come-from-behind set four win wouldn't carry over to the start of the fifth for Cloud County as Labette would score five of the first seven points to go up 5-2 before taking leads of 8-6 and 10-7 to force a T-Bird timeout. Another rally by CCCC would see Cloud County score five of the next six to take their first lead of the set since it was 1-0. Following a point from the Cardinals to tie things at 12-12, the T-Birds continued their rally by scoring the final three points of the match to secure the road victory.

With a team-best 17 kills, sophomore Geraldyn Palacios would lead Cloud County while Delaney Herold added 13 kills on 24 attempts. Herold would also add 14 digs in the match while Palacios had five blocks on the defensive end of things including CCCC's only two solo blocks.

What's Next?

Cloud County will be back at home to kick off the first of two home matches next week against ranked opponents when they take on number three-ranked Cowley in a 6 p.m. matchup. The Tigers dropped their season opener to Fort Scott on Monday night before rebounding with a sweep of Allen as part of a triangular Thursday night with their second match still going on at the time of this release.