The 6th-ranked Western Nebraska Community College volleyball team received 18 kills from Lilly Zwart and 17 service points from Shanell Martinez in earning a 4-set win over Casper College Tuesday night at Cougar Palace 23-25, 25-21, 25-20, 25-15.
Tuesday's win was the first home contest of the year for the Cougars, and it pitted two teams that entered the contest at 3-1. And, it was a battle to the end.
Zwart, the freshman from New Zealand, said they played well after the first set and the big key was coming together as a team after dropping that opening set.
"I thought we played incredible," Zwart said. "We really gelled together as a team the past week and it just showed on the court in that we were backing each other up. We played like we have never played before. It was really good."
Zwart said the difference between the first set and the last three was because they wanted to win for the fans in attendance.
"We were a little bit more fired up," she said. "We realized we had to work harder and show everyone that was here supporting us and we just in the huddle said we had to do it for everyone here watching and for the team. We really worked to get those last three sets to get it."
The team definitely did step it up on the defensive side as the blocking really picked up after the first two sets.
"Our blocking really stepped up in the last two sets especially," she said. "We were just all over their outside hitter who in the first two sets was scoring and in the last two sets we were just all over them."
WNCC actually started the match strong as Martinez served the first five points for a 5-0 lead and led 11-5. That is when Casper heated up, taking an 18-15 lead on two Nia Surman. WNCC tied the first set at 19 on two Dani Cruz points, but Casper captured the first set 25-23.
WNCC started the second set leading 6-1. Casper came back to tie the set on four Surman points at 6-6. The Cougars retook the lead at 14-10, but watch the Thunderbirds cut the Cougar lead to one at 18-17. Kyana Gabriel served two points for a 21-17 lead and then Martinez had a setter kill and then two service points for a 24-19 lead. WNCC won the set as Taylor Tyser dug the ball and send the ball over the net for a point.
The third set saw Casper jump to a 4-1 lead and led 9-6 on two Jahslyn Rajvong points. The Cougars came back to lead 13-11 on two Finja Schul points. The set was knotted at 20-20 when Cruz hammed down a kill and then Martinez took over from the service line with four points with offensive help from Zwart and Cruz and a key double block for a point from Zwart and Schul as the Cougars won 25-20.
The final set was all WNCC from the start as they led 11-2 at one point. Casper came back to cut the lead to four points on two different occasions with the last one being 15-11. Cruz stopped the Casper momentum and then Martinez served two points for an 18-11 lead. After a side out, WNCC got the ball back to serve on a hammering kill by Zwart and then Schul served two points for the 22-12 lead. WNCC won the fourth 25-15 on a Gabriel kill.
Martinez had a triple-double in the game with 48 set assists, 17 points, 15 digs, and three aces. Zwart had 18 kills with five assisted blocks and eight digs.
Also for WNCC, Tyser had 22 digs with two points, while Cruz finished with 14 kills, seven points, and seven digs.
Gabriel tallied eight kills with six digs and six points, while Schul had five kills, three assisted blocks, 10 digs, and eight points. Chloe Grady had five kills with three assisted blocks; Charli Blackman had two kills and four digs; and Megan Bewley had three points.
WNCC will have a week off as they will face Eastern Wyoming College on Tuesday, August 29 in Torrington, Wyoming. Zwart said they will keep practicing to get better in the areas they need work on.
"We will keep training and we will keep working hard because if we keep working hard we will get even better and we can roll over teams that even bigger than us," she said. "It was a great to play a home game and really happy with the team and looking forward to our next game and our next tournaments."