CONCORDIA, Kan. – Following a two-week stretch away from home, the Cloud County Community College volleyball team would pick things up right where they left off to avenge an earlier season defeat to Colby Community College with a 26-24, 25-19, 17-25, 25-22 four-set victory inside Arley Bryant Gymnasium on Wednesday, October 4th.
Running their winning streak to five matches, Cloud County is now 19-6 overall after picking up their third win of the week while moving to 5-4 in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference. Colby has now lost four of their past six matches and sits at 13-10 overall to go along with a 5-5 record in the KJCCC.
After trading the opening six points of the opening set, the T-Birds would see Colby utilize an attack error to go up 4-3 before putting together a 7-1 run to double up the Trojans at 10-5 and force CCC into an early timeout. Maintaining their five-point advantage over the course of the next eight points, Cloud County would see Colby start to close the gap with a 3-0 spurt that would turn a 14-9 lead into a 14-12 lead before getting a service error from the Trojans and block by
Emery May and
Jacey Schurle to push the lead back to four. Things would again tighten back up as Colby would not let the deficit grow to any more than four until a
Doga Eski kill with the T-Birds up 21-17 push the lead back to five. The five-point lead for CCCC would be trimmed to three before seeing Cloud County get to set point at 24-20 as a recurring issue of closing out sets would crop up for the T-Birds with Colby reeling off four straight points to tie the set at 24-24. Having seen their advantage completely erased and now forced to go to extra points, Cloud County would reclaim the lead on a kill by Schurle before an attack error on a ball that would go long leading to a 26-24 set victory.
Early control in the second set from the T-Birds would see CCCC jump out to a 6-2 lead before Colby would come storming back with four straight points including back-to-back service aces to tie things up at 6-6 to set off a streak of six straight ties. With the final tie in the streak coming at 11-11, CCCC would break the streak with an Eski kill and block by May and
Katelynn Brogan to start to build momentum as part of a 6-3 run to go up 17-14. Giving up a free point to the Trojans on a service error, Cloud County would be quick to put the mistake behind them as the next four points of the set would go the way of the T-Birds to force Colby to use a timeout while trailing 21-15. The six-point lead would prove to be more than enough the rest of the set as the final eight points of the set would ultimately be traded back and forth with Colby never really posing a true threat to close the gap as the T-Birds would take a 2-0 set lead.
With errors accounting for four of the first six points scored in the third, neither team would be able to find a rhythm offensively in the early stages of the set leading until a 4-1 rally from Cloud County that would turn a 6-5 advantage into a 10-6 lead as kills from Eski and
Madison Ronnebaum would start to put an end to the mistakes that both teams were making. Responding with a 6-1 run to force the T-Birds to use their first timeout of the set, Colby would go up 12-11 before seeing ties at 12-12 and 13-13 be broken both times with kills of their own. The one-point advantage for the Trojans would quickly grow as four of the next five points would be scored by CCC to push the lead to 18-14 as Colby would look to be in prime position to force a fourth set. Despite a kill from Eski to break the run by the Trojans, Colby would put together another stretch of points by scoring each of the next four as part of a larger 7-2 run to end the set as a 25-17 set victory would prove to be the largest margin in any of the sets played.
At risk of letting Colby grab momentum and push things to a deciding fifth set, Cloud County would keep the Trojans from putting together any serious rallies in the opening points of the fourth as the first six points of the set would be split with neither team holding a lead of more than three throughout the opening 15 points of the set. A 9-6 lead for the Trojans would grow to a set-high seven at 13-6 as the T-Birds would look out of sorts with three Colby kills along with a block and service ace contributing to the advantage. A service error would break the run by CCC to allow Cloud County to regain service as three of the next four points would be scored by the T-Birds to start to chip away at the deficit and eventually get within three at 14-11. Splitting the next six points to keep the deficit at three, Cloud County would see Colby make another run by putting together a 3-0 spurt to go up 20-14 as set would appear to be getting away from T-Birds heading into the final stretch. Turning to Schurle for a kill to end the rally, Cloud County would put together a 4-0 run to get back within two and force Colby to use their first timeout before scoring another three straight out of the timeout to force the Trojans to call their final timeout of the set. Capping off an 8-0 run with a block by
Bradie Medina and Kloë Waymel to go up 22-20, Cloud County would see the Trojans get a kill and service ace to tie things back up at 22-all before using a Brogan kill to ignite the home crowd one final time as a kill from Waymel would send things to set point and set up a Medina service ace to close out the match.
Outside of the third set where Colby would hit a blistering .394, Cloud County would force the Trojans into an attack percentage of just .169 for the match despite hitting just .164 on their end of things with the two teams combining for 44 attack errors. More free points would be given up at the service line with Colby committing 15 service aces compared to seven for the T-Birds as opportunities on both sides of the net would be seen throughout the match.
Getting a double-double performance from Medina, the Holdredge, Nebraska native would lead Cloud County with 11 kills to go along with 10 digs and three assisted blocks while Eski would record 10 kills and have eight digs. Dishing out a team-high 23 set assists, Brogan would join Medina with a double-double after finishing with 18 digs while
Brette Doile would finish with a team-best 21 digs. Colby would be led by a match-high 13 kill effort from Asli Cam while getting 11 kills each from Celia Mbaya and Ilaria Chiericati.
What's Next?
Cloud County hits the road for their lone road match over the course of the next five matches when they head to Hutchinson to take on the Blue Dragons in a 6 PM matchup on Saturday, October 7th. Hutchinson played at Seward County on Wednesday evening and dropped a 3-0 decision to the Saints in Liberal to fall to 16-9 overall and 7-3 in the KJCCC.
