Cloud County Volleyball Picks Up Two Wins at Home Triangular; Hosts Seward County on Wednesday

Kicking off a five-match week with a home triangular, the Cloud County Community College volleyball team would earn a pair of four-set victories by knocking off Southeast Community College and McPherson College JV inside Arley Bryant Gymnasium on Monday, September 18th.

With the wins, Cloud County has now won three straight matches to improve to 12-5 overall. Southeast Community College would split their matches after defeating McPherson JV in four sets in the second match of the day to move to 5-9 overall while McPherson JV is now 5-7 overall.

Against Southeast:
After dropping the opening set of the day to the Bobcats 25-18, the T-Birds would be able to bounce back in the second by breaking a 6-6 tie with a 3-0 rally that would be capped off with a Madison Ronnebaum kill to start to build a lead that would be maintained over the next six points of the set. With the score at 12-9 in favor of CCCC, Cloud County would use three Doga Eski kills to keep trading points with SCC before turning in a 3-0 spurt to push their lead to 18-13. Following a kill by Southeast, Cloud County would get a kill from Ronnebaum along with a Katelynn Brogan service ace to extend the lead to six at 20-14 with the Bobcats never getting any closer than three the rest of the way to see CCCC tie the match up at 1-1 with a 25-21 win.

The T-Birds would never trail in the third set as three-straight points to open the set would allow Cloud County to take an early lead and double up Southeast at 10-5 after the first 15 points of the set before taking advantage of two errors by the Bobcats along with two more Eski kills to go up 14-8. Southeast would appear to be building momentum a few points later as a service error by CCCC along with an SCC service ace would bring Southeast back within three at 15-12, but the next five points of the set would be score by the T-Birds to turn things into a 20-12 contest. Cloud County would extend the run following a service error by scoring the final five points of the set to end the set on a 10-1 run to runaway with a 25-13 set victory.

Closing out the Bobcats would not come easy for CCCC as Southeast would score four of the first six points in the fourth set and manage to hold an 8-7 lead until a 13-3 run by the T-Birds would turn the one-point deficit into a nine-point advantage at 20-11. Southeast would make one last push following a timeout by scoring the next four points as part of a 7-1 run that would close the gap down to three at 21-18 and eventually down to one at 22-21 to force a CCCC timeout. Returning the favor the same way that Southeast did, Cloud County would come out of the timeout and score the final three points of the match to hold off the Bobcats and take a 25-21 set victory to close out the match.

Defense would prove to be the catalyst in the match for CCCC as Southeast would hit just .121 in the match as six blocks would help offset a .259 attack percentage offensively. Recording a match-high 19 kills would be Eski with a .316 attack percentage to finish as just one of two players in the match to have double-digit kills. Setting up the offense would be Brogan (24 set assists) and Ashley Suter (22 set assists) to account for 46 of the 54 assists dished out by the T-Birds.

Against McPherson JV:
Outside of a second set that would be a 25-21 win for the Bulldogs, the nightcap would be nearly all T-Birds as Cloud County would take the first set 25-12 along with a 25-14 set three win and 25-13 set four victory. The opening set win would see CCCC score five of the first seven points of the match before using a 9-0 run to turn a 7-6 lead into a 16-6 lead as things would be on cruise control the rest of the set. McPherson JV would be unable to score more than two consecutive points at any point the rest of the set as Cloud County would turn in a 13-point win.

A big factor in allowing McPherson JV to take the second set would be a .087 attack percentage for the T-Birds as seven attack errors would nearly completely offset 11 offensive kills as the Bulldogs would get their best offensive set of the match with a .268 attack percentage with 17 kills and just six attack errors. The T-Birds would respond in the third set by recording six service aces while scoring eight of the first 11 points on their way to doubling up the Bulldogs at 14-7. Three of the next four points would also be scored by CCCC to push things to a nine-point advantage before scoring six of the final eight points of the set to take a 25-14 win.

Not taking any chances at allowing the Bulldogs to try and force a fifth set, Cloud County would turn things around after falling behind 7-5 by scoring three of the next four to tie things at 7-7 before taking the lead for good on an Eski kill that would kickstart a 13-0 run to go up 21-9. With the set well in hand, Cloud County would match the scoring output by McPherson JV down the stretch with the final eight points of the match being split 4-4 to eventually allow CCCC to end things with a 25-13 set win.

Outside of the second set when Cloud County would record a sub .100 attack percentage, CCCC would register attack percentages over .300 in all the other three sets to finish with a .250 attack percentage with 48 kills on 128 attack attempts. Leading the match with 15 kills to finish the day with a total of 34, Eski again would be the primary force offensively for the T-Birds while also providing one of two blocks recorded by the T-Birds. Just missing out on a double-digit kill performance would be freshman Bradie Medina after finishing with nine on 22 attack attempts while Brogan would record a double-double by finishing with a team-high 23 set assists and 14 digs.

What's Next?
Cloud County will return to Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference play with a 6:30 PM home match against Seward County Community College inside Arley Bryant Gymnasium on Wednesday, September 20th. The Saints currently hold a 10-8 overall record and 2-3 mark in the KJCCC with their last contest coming on Wednesday, September 13th when they dropped a three-set home decision to Dodge City Community College.