CONCORDIA, Kan. – For the second straight night, the Cloud County Community College volleyball team would utilize the home-court advantage as the T-Birds would down Allen County Community College in four sets to earn their second-straight win inside of Arley Bryant Gymnasium on Thursday, February 18th.
Improving to 4-4 overall and 4-4 in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference, Cloud County took the match with scores of 25-15, 16-25, 25-19, and 25-21. Allen falls to 4-5 overall and 3-5 in the KJCCC as the Red Devils remain winless on the year in true road matches.
A slow start by both teams would open the match would see three ties through opening 10 points of action as neither CCCC nor ACCC would be able to string together more than two straight points to kick things off. Holding a slim 8-7 lead, Cloud County would use a 3-0 spurt to force the Red Devils into a timeout while holding an 11-7 lead and add to their run with three more points out of the break to go up 14-7 and gain some breathing room. Allen would then have trouble getting out of their own way as momentum would begin to build with the home crowd as the T-Birds would continue to build upon their lead and never give the Red Devils a chance to get back into the set on their way to a 25-15 set victory.
All the momentum built up in the first set would quickly be erased to begin the second as Allen would score the first four points of the set and jump out to a 7-3 lead on the T-Birds as CCCC would face similar issues that the Red Devils had in the first set. Things would go from bad to worse for Cloud County as ACCC would push their lead out to six at 13-7 to force a T-Bird timeout as Allen would manage to take advantage of unforced CCCC errors. As the set continued, Cloud County never would be able to find any traction to get back into the set as ACCC would tie things up with a 25-16 set victory to send things to the third.
In familiar fashion to the first set, trading points early on would be the focus as the first eight points of the set would be a back-and-forth affair until an Allen attack error and Delaney Herold kill would put CCCC up 6-4. The Red Devils would respond to tie it up at 6-6 and again at 7-7 as neither team would be able to break things open in the set. Following an Allen block error and Natasha Dooley kill, the Red Devils would once again find themselves in the net to give CCCC a free point as Allen head coach Whitney Shaw would use a timeout trailing 13-10. The slim lead would allow the T-Birds to finally start to try and build some momentum as the lead would remain at three for the next several points. ACCC would then manage to get within two at 20-18 before giving up a 5-1 run to end the set and allow Cloud County to go up two sets to one with a 25-19 set victory.
Looking to end things in the fourth, the T-Birds would jump all over the Red Devils early by scoring five of the first six to force an early Allen timeout before eventually growing their lead to six at 11-5. A surge from ACCC midway through the set would get things knotted up at 14-14 and force Cloud County into a timeout as things would tighten up heading into the back end of the set. Ties at 15-15, 16-16, and again at 17-17 would make way to a 4-0 Cloud County spurt capped off by a Geraldyn Palacios service ace to put the T-Birds up 21-17 as the gap would make a match victory just four points away for CCCC. The Red Devils would manage to trade the next six points with Cloud County as the T-Birds would ultimately be too much to take a 25-21 set victory to close out the first half of conference action with four wins.
Finishing with a team-high 13 kills Herold would do most of her damage offensively in the third and fourth sets as the sophomore would record eight of her kills in the final two sets. Lizzy Pfortmiller would also have a big night on the attack, finishing with 11 kills compared to just on attack error on 20 attempts for a .500 hitting percentage. Dishing out 38 set assists would be Jaycee Burghart to set the tone while Palacios would have four of CCCC's six service aces. Five different players for Cloud County would reach double-digit digs, led by 27 from Dooley.
What's Next?
Cloud County is next scheduled to compete again a week from tonight with a trip to Kansas City, Kansas to take on the Blue Devils to begin the second round of KJCCC action in double-round robin action at 6:30 PM. KCKCC will travel to Hesston on Monday ahead of Thursday's match with the T-Birds and is currently 6-4 overall with a 5-3 mark in conference action.
