Cloud County Volleyball Earns First Win Over Colby in 7 Years, Takes Down Trojans in Straight Sets
Nearly 12 years to the day, the Cloud County Community College volleyball team earned their first Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference victory of the season on their home court by sweeping Colby Community College for the first time since August 28th, 2010 with a 25-20, 25-17, 25-22 win inside Arley Bryant Gymnasium on Wednesday, August 31st.
The win for the T-Birds moves CCCC to 4-2 overall and 1-1 in the KJCCC with their first victory over the Trojans since October 12th, 2015 as Colby falls to 4-3 overall and 0-3 in league play while seeing a six-match winning streak over Cloud County come to an end. Prior to Wednesday night's victory, Cloud County had not beaten Colby in Concordia since September 24th, 2014 with a four-set victory over the Trojans.
Play would be slow out of the gates for both teams with neither squad stringing together more than two points throughout the opening 14 points of the match that would keep things tied at 7-7. A Doga Eski kill would give the T-Birds the lead at 8-7 and start what would become a 7-0 run with Mariah Janda at the service line as Colby could not seem to get out of their own way and commit five errors during the run to allow the T-Birds to double up the score at 14-7. The next seven points of the set would return to the back and forth action that was seen early on before another CCCC run with three straight points to turn an 18-11 contest into a 21-11 lead that would allow Cloud County to ease their way down the stretch into a 25-20 set victory to go up 1-0 in the match.
A complete opposite start to the second set would see both Cloud County and Colby start off their scoring opportunities with 3-0 runs before back-to-back points by the T-Birds would make way for another 3-0 Trojan run to give Colby a 6-5 lead. Taking advantage of a service error, Cloud County would score the next four points as part of an 8-1 run capped off by a Katelynn Brogan service ace to put CCCC up 13-7 and start to put some room between themselves and the Trojans. Adding to their lead, Cloud County would manage to take four of the next six points and take their largest lead of the set at 17-9 before giving up five straight points to the Trojans to see the lead cut down to three at 17-14. Another timely service error from Colby however would allow Cloud County to take back over as three straight points would lead to a Trojan timeout before another two points out of the timeout to match the earlier eight-point lead at 22-14. The final six points of the set would wind up being traded back and forth as the T-Birds once again would find themselves taking advantage of the built-up lead to take another set and go up 2-0.
A slow start from CCCC to begin the third set would allow Colby to score six of the first seven points and jump out to a 6-1 lead as the T-Birds would be forced to try and claw their way back into the set. Back-to-back errors from Colby along with a Marcella Garcia kill would bring Cloud County within two at 6-4, but CCCC would be unable to completely close the gap as Colby would push their lead back out to four at 10-6. Keeping within striking distance, the T-Birds would finally manage to put together a run by scoring nine of the next 12 points to take their first lead of the set and force the Trojans to call a timeout. Two points in favor of Colby out of the timeout would allow the Trojans to reclaim the lead one final time before seeing a Brogan kill kick off a 5-0 run for Cloud County that would give the T-Birds a 19-15 lead heading into the final stretch. Trading points to put the score at 20-16, Colby would then manage to score the next three points and get back within one at 20-19 and begin to put some pressure on CCCC. Errors once again would show up at inopportune times however for Colby as four of the next six points would go in favor of the T-Birds to go get to match point at 24-21 before ending things on their second match point opportunity with a kill by Eski.
For the match, Cloud County would record 32 kills on 92 total attack attempts for a .185 attack percentage while holding Colby to a .052 attack percentage that included 20 attack errors. The Trojans would record eight service aces compared to five for CCCC, but see the advantage offset by a 7-3 lead for the T-Birds in blocks which included four solo blocks. Brogan would lead all players in the match with 10 kills and also record five set assists to go with eight digs and two service aces while Eski would finish with eight kills on 16 attempts. Recording a team-best 14 set assists would be Brette Doile while Zoe Bechard had 11 digs to lead Cloud County defensively.
What's Next?
A quick turnaround sees Cloud County head down to Hutchinson to take on the number-13 ranked Blue Dragons in their first of two matches at the Hutchinson Sports Arena on Friday, September 2nd as part of the Hutchinson CC triangular. The match between CCCC and HCC will begin at 4 PM and be followed by a 6 PM match between the T-Birds and Friends University JV to close out the week for Cloud County. Hutchinson is 10-3 overall following a four-set defeat at the hands of 16th-ranked Seward County on Wednesday night in Liberal that would snap a 10-match winning streak.