CONCORDIA, Kan. - Limited to a .108 attack percentage on 29 total kills, the Cloud County Community College volleyball team would fall in straight sets to Dodge City Community College inside of Arley Bryant Gymnasium on Wednesday, October 20th.
With the defeat, Cloud County falls to 16-14 overall and 4-10 in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference while Dodge City improves to 14-7 overall and 7-7 in the KJCCC.
A back-and-forth start to the opening set would see the the Conquistadors double up the T-Birds 4-2 before a 4-0 run by Cloud County capped off by a kill from
Kylie Fuller would make it a 6-4 contest. Dodge City would then turn a 7-5 deficit into a 10-7 advantage by using a 5-0 run which included a stretch of four straight kills as CCCC would see the deficit stay between two and four points over the course of the next 11 points. Trailing 16-12, Cloud County would see things start to unravel as back-to-back service aces and an attack error would allow DC3 to take a 19-12 lead and force a T-Bird timeout as things would not get any better down the stretch with the Conquistadors taking a 25-18 set one win.
In the second set, five ties and one lead change would be had throughout the set as four of the five ties would come in the opening 14 points. Tied at 7-7, two straight points from Cloud County would allow the T-Birds to retain a two-point lead at 9-7 before extending their lead to three at 13-10 and again at 14-11. A 5-0 Dodge City run would then see the Conquistadors take their first lead of the set at 16-14 before pushing their lead to 19-15 as CCCC would not have an answer for a strong offensive output from DC3. The Dodge City lead would grow to as many as six at 22-16 as the deficit would ultimately prove to be too much for Cloud County to overcome as part of a 25-21 set defeat to go down 2-0 in the match.
More close action would be had in the third set of the night as the two teams would split the first six points of the set before seeing CCCC use a 4-1 run to go up 7-4 and eventually 13-9 to force Dodge City into a timeout. Following the timeout, DC3 would score three straight to pull back within one, but the T-Birds would turn back the Conquistadors with back-to-back points to push their lead back out to three at 15-12 and maintain a slight advantage. A 6-1 Dodge City run however would allow the Conquistadors to go up by an 18-16 margin as things would stay within three points the rest of the way. Cloud County would continue to battle after trailing by three at 23-20 to tie things up at 23-23, but it would all be for not as a pair of kills from Dodge City would end the match with a 25-23 setback for the T-Birds to allow DC3 to finish off the match.
The limited offensive production would see CCCC record no more than 11 kills in any of the three sets as the most productive set of the night for the T-Birds would come in the second set with nine kills and three errors on 36 total attempts. Dodge City would fare much better throughout, finishing with a .220 attack percentage and recording 46 kills on 123 attempts.
Lakyn Tenbrink led Cloud County with six total kills alongside
Natasha Dooley and
Geraldyn Palacios who would record five kills each. Dooley would add three of the T-Birds four service aces while
Mariah Janda would have the other service ace to go along with 13 set assists on the evening.
What's Next?
Cloud County will take on their sixth foe of the season on Saturday, October 23rd as the T-Birds will travel to El Dorado, Kansas to face off against number-four Butler. The Grizzlies won a share of the KJCCC regular-season championship on Wednesday night by sweeping Hutchinson on the road and are now 29-2 overall on the year and 13-0 in conference play. First serve is scheduled for 2 p.m. from the Power Plant.
