LAMAR, Colo. – The No. 17 Western Nebraska Community College volleyball team dropped the first set to Lamar Community College, but rebounded in a major fashion in earning the 4-set win 23-25, 25-15, 25-21, 25-19 Friday night in Lamar, Colorado.
The win moves the Cougars to 25-7 on the season and 7-1 in conference play. WNCC will finish off the week when they head to McCook Community College on Saturday with a 1 p.m. start.
The Cougars were lethargic in the first set as they sputtered and let Lamar capture the first set 25-23.
The second set was the typical "good" Cougar team with strong serving, timely hitting, and big blocks. WNCC held a 3-2 early in the second when Chloe Grady hammered a kill. Taylor Tyser followed with eight straight service points for a 12-2 lead.
WNCC went up 17-5 and later led 22-10 after a Tyser ace serve. The Cougars won the second on a missed Lamar missed serve.
Lamar started the third set on a 5-0 run and led 12-7. WNCC came storming back to take a 14-13 lead on four Ahleejah Tovo-Sunia service points and two from Finja Schul. WNCC pushed the lead to 22-16 after five points from Tyser which also included a big double block from Schul and Dessiah Christopher. WNCC won the third 25-21 on a Schul service point.
The fourth set saw Nora Marginean start off with two points and Lamar came back and tied the game a couple times, the last time at 7-7. That was when Tamika Eastman hammered a kill and then Schul had three points for a 10-7 lead.
WNCC extended the lead to 17-12 after two Lilly Zwart points and then led 22-17 after two Marginean points. WNCC won the fourth on two Eastman points with Grady getting the final kill to end the match.
Unofficially, three Cougars had nine or more kills. Zwart led the way with 11 kills followed by Schul with 10 and Eastman with nine. Grady tallied eight kills while Christopher had six kills.
Tyser led the way from the service line with 15 points while Marginean had eight, Schul and Tovo-Sunia each tallied seven, Eastman had six, and Zwart had four.