CONCORDIA, Kan. – Home-court woes against conference competition would continue on Wednesday evening for the Cloud County Community College with a four-set defeat to visiting Colby Community College inside of Arley Bryant Gymnasium on September 15th.
 
Cloud County now sits one game above .500 on the year at 7-6 overall and 0-4 in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference while the Trojans improved to 10-7 overall and 3-2 in the KJCCC.
 
After falling into a 3-0 hole to begin the match, Cloud County would finally get on the board with a Geraldyn Palacios kill early in the first set as the T-Birds would have to dig out of two separate three point holes to grab their first lead at 7-6. Freshmen Kenzie Cooper and Camryn Wessel would then team up on the block followed by a Cooper solo block to make it 9-6 in favor of Cloud County before seeing five straight points from Colby give the Trojans the lead back at 11-9. The tight-knit opening set would continue throughout the set as Colby would take what would be their largest lead up to that point at 18-14 to force a Cloud County timeout before splitting the next four points to make it 20-16. Down but not out, Cloud County would respond with five of the next seven points to pull within one and force a Trojan timeout as things would get tied up one last time at 23-23. With the set tied up, Colby would go on to record a kill and use a blocking error from the T-Birds to squeak out a 25-23 set victory and grab the early match lead.
 
Things would be all Colby in the second as 5-2 Trojan lead would balloon to 12-7 with Cloud County seemingly out of sorts in the early going. An attack error from Colby followed by a Cadence Nondorf kill would get the T-Birds back within three at 12-9, but the Trojans would have a response by scoring five of the next six to go up 17-10 and force a Cloud County timeout. Down the stretch, the deficit would not close any more as Colby would have too much firepower on both the offensive and defensive side with three Trojan blocks in the final nine points scored paving the way to a 25-15 Colby set victory.
 
Coming out swinging in the third, Cloud County would take advantage of three Colby errors to go up 5-1 and force the Trojans into an early timeout. The lead would quickly close back to within two at 5-3 as the two teams would manage to trade the next several points allowing the T-Birds to maintain a slim lead before a Lakyn Tenbrink kill followed by a Tenbrink and Wessel combo block would put Cloud County back up four at 13-9. Wessel and Nondorf would then go on the offensive to put down back-to-back kills and force Colby into their final timeout of the set as a 16-10 lead would grow to a set high 10 at 20-10. With the double-digit lead, Cloud County would see Colby attempt to make a late rally but manage to come up with the needed points down the stretch as the T-Birds would manage to take a 25-17 set victory to send things to a fourth-set in the match.
 
Momentum from a third-set victory would quickly turn back over to Colby as six of the first nine points of the set would be scored by the Trojans with Cloud County once again facing an early deficit. Back-to-back errors from the T-Birds would push the lead to 8-3 as part of a 9-1 run that would turn the set into a 10-3 Colby lead. Cloud County would use their first of two timeouts trailing 12-4 to try and stop momentum, but it would be of little help as the Trojans would continue their push and get the T-Birds to use a second-timeout at 18-5. With Colby up 13 points and just seven points from closing out the match, Cloud County would be unable to string together any rallies late as the Trojans would push forward to take a 25-11 set victory to close out the match.
 
Palacios would be the lone T-Bird in double-figures in kills by finishing with 12 on 25 attempts and a .320 attack percentage while Natasha Dooley would record eight kills to just one attack error and have a team-best .388 attack percentage. Kylie Fuller would lead Cloud County in both set assists (24) and digs (17) while Michaela Bowers (16), Nondorf (15), and Mariah Janda (12) all reached double-figures in digs. Tenbrink would record the lone solo block of the night for Cloud County and also added five assisted blocks as part of her defensive totals.  
 
What's Next?
Cloud County will head west for a pair of matches on Saturday, September 18th as the T-Birds will take on KJCCC foe Dodge City in Dodge at 3 p.m. before taking on Lamar Community College at 5 p.m. for their second match in the Dodge City triangular. The Conquistadors snapped a 23 match losing streak against Hutchinson by winning in four sets on the road to improve to 5-1 overall on the year and 2-1 in the KJCCC. Lamar has played 17 matches this season and are 3-14 overall following a four-set loss to Pratt on Monday evening.