CONCORDIA, Kan. – An opening set 26-24 victory by the Cloud County Community College volleyball team would wind up being the closest set of the night for the T-Birds in a 3-0 sweep of Garden City Community College inside of Arley Bryant Gymnasium in Concordia, Kansas on Monday, October 11th.
 
CCCC improves to 13-12 overall on the year and has won two straight Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference matches for the first time this season to move to 3-8 in the KJCCC while Garden City falls to 8-19 overall and 1-9 in the KJCCC.
 
A quick start from Garden City would allow the Broncbusters to jump out on the T-Birds by a 4-1 margin to open up the match before seeing Cloud County storm back with a 6-1 run capped off by a pair of Kenzie Cooper service aces to put CCCC up 7-5. Things would then become a back-and-forth battle as neither team would be able to secure a lead of more than three points until a 6-0 run from GCCC would turn an 11-9 Cloud County lead into a 15-11 Garden City lead. The T-Birds would then respond with three out of the next four points to get back within a point and force a Broncbuster timeout before eventually pulling back even at 20-20 on a block by Lakyn Tenbrink and Camryn Wessel. Garden City would make one more push to try and take the opening set from CCCC by scoring three of the next four points to go up 23-21 and get to set point at 24-22, but the T-Birds would fight off a pair of set points as part of a 4-0 run to end the set and take a 26-24 opening set victory to grab momentum moving forward.
 
Cloud County and Garden City would trade the first six points of the second set before seeing CCCC break through with a 7-2 run to double up the Broncbusters at 12-6 as the six point lead would hold throughout the next 10 points of action. The T-Birds would then start to extend their lead late in the set as a 5-1 run would make things 21-12 in favor of CCCC off a Natasha Dooley kill as Cloud County would put things away without giving GCCC a chance at making a comeback in what would wind up becoming a 25-14 set win.
 
Things would again stay close in the opening points of the third set as neither team would be able to string together a run until the T-Birds would use a setting error from Garden City to spark a 5-0 run to go up 7-3. The Bronbusters would fight their way back to within a single point at 9-8, but Cloud County would once again go on a run by using a 5-1 run to go up by five at 14-9. Putting away Garden City would be anything but easy for the T-Birds as GCCC would continue to put up a battle and get within three at 17-14, but four of the next five points would be scored by Cloud County to make it 21-16 as CCCC would once again end the set by scoring the final four points and closing out a 25-16 set victory to end the match.  
 
An 8-1 advantage in service aces would be a big factor in the match as Cloud County would get two service aces each from Dooley, Geraldyn Palacios, and Cooper. Cooper would also wind up as the lone player in the match to reach double-digit kills with 11 while Dooley would finish with eight kills and a .353 attack percentage on 17 attack attempts.
 
What's Next?
Both Cloud County and Garden City will have a mere 48 hours to prepare for a second matchup between squads as the Broncbusters will host the T-Birds in Garden City on Wednesday, October 13th for a 6:30 PM matchup. CCCC will be going for their first series sweep of the year against an opponent as the previous six opponents that Cloud County has played twice this year have avoided going 0-2 against the T-Birds.