The top-ranked Western Nebraska Community College volleyball team will by aiming to capture its 17th straight Region IX title, but it won't be an easy feat to accomplish.
The Cougars, who sport an impressive 36-4 record, enter the Region IX South tournament that begins Wednesday in Sterling, Colorado, as the No. 1 seed. That, however, really doesn't mean a lot considering all six teams in the tournament have won sub-region contests.
One of the bigger upsets came just a week ago when Northeastern Junior College won a five-game thriller over the Cougars. The win by NJC snapped a WNCC 23-match win streak.
"We are a work in progress right now," he said. "We have to pass a little bit better and keep our composure. We hit uncharted territory with the loss, struggles a little bit against NJC and they played great. We have to learn how to come back from that and keep our composure and do the things that we do well and that will be the telling tale."
The tournament begins Wednesday night with two first-round contests pitting No. 3 Otero Junior College against No. 6 McCook Community College at 5 p.m. followed by No. 4 Lamar Community College against No. 5 Trinidad State Junior College.
WNCC will begin tournament play Thursday at 11 a.m. against the winner of the Lamar/Trinidad match, while No. 2 NJC opens play at 9 a.m. Thursday against the winner of Otero/McCook.
Canales said this tournament is up for grabs and it depends what teams show up.
"Otero beat NJC and NJC beat us, then you have other teams that beat Otero," he said. "This tournament can go anyway. These are all college athletes and they all are talented and play hard. We just have to rise above it and do the things that we do well and make teams adjust to us instead of us adjusting to them."
The key for the Cougars and Canales is staying focused on going one set, one match at a time.
"That is every team's ultimate goal to go to nationals and succeed there. That has been what we have talked about throughout the year," he said. "We just can't lose focus on the obstacles that were in the way. We have to focus first on the winner of Lamar and Trinidad and then we will play the winner of whoever else. We just have to take it one set at a time and one match at a time."
The one thing for sure is the WNCC team did get a wake-up call when they fell to NJC on Oct. 28. The loss was upsetting the Cougars who, just four days earlier, played one of its best matches of the year in upending No. 4 Iowa Western Community College in five games.
Canales said he is hoping that loss to NJC will fire the team up.
"That loss will affect one of two ways. It will either hurt the team and lose confidence or it will fire them up and get them ready to go," he said. "The girls will have to make a decision of how it affects them and they should be able to control both avenues."
What Canales is hoping is that the loss fires them up and his team returns to the way they played against Iowa Western or even the first time they played against NJC, where they won in four games.
"If we can pass the ball and reverse the wheel that hurt us we will be OK," he said. "We didn't do that mistake [not pass well] through the whole year but we did do it that one match. Now we have to fix that problem, which is fixable. We just have to react from it."
The Cougars do possess a team that has plenty of talent, led by sophomore setter Fabiana Andrade, who has registered over 1,500 set assists this season which is second most in the nation. WNCC also has a dual threat in Keala Kaio-Perez, who spent most of the time this season at libero, but has been a hitter in crucial situations to spark the team.
The Cougars offense hitters revolve around a multitude of freshman, including 6-0 Shaney Tiumalu, 5-10 Barbara Rabanal, 5-11 Lara Picht, 6-0 Jady Gerotto, 6-2 Kennedy Cyza, and 6-0 Kaylee Cyza. All these hitters have played an important part in the offensive attack this season.
But, WNCC also got big play from other players including sophomores Katy Ernest and Fuatino Manu on defense and Gering's Santanna Mitchell along the front row.
Canales said he doesn't want the highlight of the season to be about any specific wins; he wants it to be about something in the future. Right now, the Cougars have had plenty of defining victories, but there is plenty of goals left on the horizon.
"We had a lot of good moments, a lot of high points. We had a lot of defining moments," Canales said. "I don't think anyone on our team is ready to say that was our highlight of our season. We don't want that yet. We are still waiting for it to build and have the highlight of our season at a later time. There are still plenty of more goals and the next step is regionals and we will take it one at a time and that is the way we have to do it."
Tournament action can be watched from the NJC YouTube channel at NJC_Athletics. The link is located at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsLRo8BxSACzeAXBiluLXNA.