It was a battle Saturday afternoon at Cougar Palace between the Western Nebraska Community College and McCook Community College volleyball teams. In the end, the Indians from McCook survived WNCC in earning the 15-25, 25-18, 25-23, 25-20 Region IX South conference win.

                WNCC equals their record at 14-14 and moves to 5-2 in conference play.

                WNCC libero Taylor Tyser said they are just not executing on the little things which, she said, they are going to work hard in practice this week to get those corrected.

                "We played really competitive and back and forth with them in the first set. I think our energy was probably the best in the first set and that helped us to get on top of them," she said. "I think the other sets it was just little things that we need to focus on in practice, but overall I think we did pretty good."

                The difference in the contest was McCook's front row play as the Indians registered 20 total blocks to just 10 for the Cougars. On the offensive side, McCook had 49 kills compared to 40 for WNCC.

                Hitting was about equal as each had 21 hitting errors. WNCC had a hitting percentage of .153 while McCook finished with a .201 hitting percentage.

                WNCC was led by Kyana Gabriel with 14 kills followed by Dani Cruz with eight and five each from Chloe Grady and Finja Schul.

                McCook was led by Jordan Duzenack with 14 followed by Fernanda Merancio with 11. Ogallala's Gabby Caskey finished with five kills.

                WNCC finished with more digs than McCook 57-54. Shanelle Martinez led the way with 17 digs followed by Tyser with 16. Martinez also had three kills with 27 set assists.

                WNCC opened the contest strong. After trailing 4-1 in the first set, WNCC tied the set at 5-5 on two Tyser points and then went up 15-9 on five Martinez service points. WNCC won the first set 25-15.

                After that, McCook picked up the pace as they captured the second set 25-18 and then hung on to win the third 25-23. The final set saw McCook lead early and stayed in front, stopping key Cougar runs to get the final set.

                WNCC will have just one game this week as they travel to No. 2 Northeastern Junior College on Wednesday.

                The Cougars will then wrap up the regular season with three matches the following week when they host Eastern Wyoming College on Oct. 24 in a big night as it is sophomore recognition along with WNCC Homecoming Alumni night where alumni get in free. It is also Breast Cancer Awareness night where it is encouraged to wear pink to Pink Out Cougar Palace.

                WNCC will then wrap up the regular season Oct. 27 and 28 at Trinidad State College and Otero College.

                Tyser said they need to focus to finish out the rest of the regular season with a winning record and go into the regional tournament with some confidence.

                "In practice we have to be really intentional because it is winding down," she said. "These are our final games to get seedings that we want so we have to take every minute as serious as possible. We just have to buckle down and keep going."