HIGHLAND, Kan. – Road woes for the Cloud County Community College volleyball team would continue on Thursday night as the T-Birds would drop a three-set decision to number-seven nationally-ranked Highland Community College inside of Ben Allen Fieldhouse in Highland, Kansas on Thursday, March 4th.
Falling to 7-7 overall, Cloud County is now 6-7 in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference while the Scotties picked up their ninth win of the year to improve to 9-1 overall and 8-1 in the KJCCC to remain in a tie atop the conference standings.
Scores of the match would be 25-17, 25-19, and 25-19 as Cloud County would manage to hang tough with the Scotties early on in each of the three sets before seeing HCC runs midway through the sets prove to be the difference in all three games. With the score tied at 6-6 early on in the first, Highland would score three-straight to force a CCCC timeout as the lead would eventually balloon to 17-10 as the seven-point advantage would allow Highland to go on and secure a first set win.
In the second set, the T-Birds would jump out to an early 5-3 lead, but see the Scotties battle back to grab a 14-11 lead as things would remain close over the next eight points. Cloud County would manage to pull within one at 17-16 and force Highland to call one of their two timeouts in the set, but it would be the Scotties who would pull away late in the set by scoring five of the final seven points to go on and take a 2-0 lead in the match.
An 8-1 HCC run in the third set would turn an 8-7 deficit for Cloud County into a 16-8 hole as the T-Birds would not have a response for the Scotties offensively. CCCC would be able to get no closer than five points in the rest of the set as Highland would go on to close out the match and pick up their ninth-straight win.
In total, Cloud County would finish with 32 total kills on 131 attacks to finish with an attack percentage under .100 on the night. Sophomore
Geraldyn Palacios would be the lone T-Bird to crack double-figures in the kill column to finish with 10 kills, seven digs, and three solo blocks.
Delaney Herold would finish with a team-high 18 digs in the match to go along with two service aces while
Jaycee Burghart recorded 26 set assists and seven kills.
What's Next?
Cloud County will take on KJCCC co-leader and number-four nationally ranked Johnson County Community College in a 6 p.m. matchup on Tuesday, March 9th inside of Arley Bryant Gymnasium. Johnson County will host Labette Community College on Saturday ahead of Tuesday's road trip to Concordia as the Cavaliers have won five straight to run their record to 10-1 overall and 9-1 in the KJCCC.
