The Western Nebraska Community College volleyball team dropped its first conference match of the season when the fifth-ranked Northeastern Junior College Plainswomen registered a 25-21, 25-13, 25-22 win Wednesday evening at Cougar Palace.
The loss drops the Cougars record to 11-11 and 2-1 in conference play while NJC moves to 22-2 overall and 3-0 in conference.
Taylor Tyser, the freshman libero, said the team was too up and down like a rollercoaster in the contest.
"I think our problem right now is just consistency," Tyser said. "We have a couple amazing plays and then a couple plays where we are off. Consistency is a big deal and we just have to get better with that consistency."
Tyser said consistency is very important.
"It starts in practice so we definitely so we need to kick up our excitement and energy in practice," she said. "It is really important. Volleyball is just a game of runs and mistakes and if you make too many mistakes and they go on too many runs, you lose."
WNCC played well at times as they battled the fifth-ranked team in the first and third sets. In the end, it was long service runs by NJC that proved to be the difference.
"It is just not them serving, it is just us taking plays off and not being there defensively," she said. "Against a team like that that can capitalize on you, then you get down. Our serving was pretty good tonight, but we do have to kick it up a notch. It is just consistency overall that is what we need."
The first set saw NJC jump out to a 4-0 lead on four service points from Nerea Alvarez Jorge. WNCC bounced back and cut the deficit to 7-5 after a Charli Blackman kill and two Tyser points, but NJC used strong service runs of three points by Francesca Nuzzo and a 4-point run by Alvarez Jorge to lead 18-8.
NJC led 20-9 before WNCC mounted a comeback. Blackman started things with a kill and then served two points make it 20-12. NJC led 23-17 when Finja Schul had a kill followed by two Megan Bewley points to cut the deficit to 23-17. A missed serve gave NJC set point, but Dani Cruz served three points to bring the Cougars to withing 24-21 before a kill ended the set in favor of the Plainswomen.
The second set started identical as NJC led 5-1 and later 9-1. WNCC cut the deficit to 17-11 on a Cruz kill, but Annika Helf had a 6-point service run to give NJC a 24-11 lead and they won the second 25-13.
The third set was a totally different contest as the two Region IX South rivals battled toe-to-toe. WNCC led 2-0 at the start and led 6-4 after a Tyser point and kills from Lilly Zwart and Chloe Grady. After that, the teams were knotted several times before the Cougars took a 16-14 lead on two Tyser service points including an ace.
NJC retook the lead at 19-17 on two Helf points, but the Cougars kept battling, tying the set at 20-20 on a Kyana Gabriel kill. NJC retook the lead at 23-20 only to watch Gabriel hammer another kill to stop the service run. WNCC cut the lead to 23-22 but NJC got the final two points for the match.
WNCC finished the match with just 34 kills, led by Zwart with 11 and Gabriel with nine. Blackman also had six while Grady had four.
Martinez finished the match with 30 set assists with two points and six digs, while Tyser had 19 digs with seven points, and two aces. Bewley had 11 digs with two points, while Cruz had two kills, seven digs and five points. Gabriel added nine digs.
WNCC will be off until next week when they travel to Laramie County Community College on Tuesday for a non-conference contest. The Cougars will then return home next week Thursday and Friday with home contests against Trinidad State and Otero.
Tyser said they need to work hard in the next practices and use this match as a learning experience.
"It is a big week and we have to take what happened today (Wednesday night) and learn from it and come back to practice ready to work and come back next week even stronger," she said.