Cloud County Volleyball Sweeps Pratt in Regular Season Finale

Six sophomores playing in their final home match of their careers would go out on a high-note for the Cloud County Community College volleyball team following a 25-23, 25-13, 25-20 sweep over Pratt Community College inside Arley Bryant Gymnasium in Concordia, Kansas on Saturday, October 28th.
 
A third-straight victory for Cloud County allows the T-Birds to improve to 22-12 overall and 8-8 in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference with the conclusion of the regular-season. Pratt ends their season with a 9-23 overall record and 0-16 mark in the KJCCC.
 
With the previous matchup between CCCC and PCC going five sets in Pratt just one month ago, the T-Birds would find themselves locked into an early battle in the opening set as 10 ties and five lead changes would not allow either team to hold a lead of more than three. After splitting the opening 10 points of the match, Cloud County would see Pratt use two kills and a CCCC attack error to go up 8-5 before seeing the T-Birds come back with five of the next six points to flip the score back in favor of Cloud County by a 10-9 margin. Trading the next three points back-and-forth, Cloud County would use a 3-0 run before seeing a 4-0 Beaver run allow PCC to go up 15-14 as part of a larger 7-1 run to take an 18-15 lead. Regrouping with a Doga Eski kill, the Kostamonu, Turkey native would get CCCC back within a point with a service ace on the next serve as Cloud County would pull back even five points later on a Madison Ronnebaum kill that would make things a 20-20 contest. Following an attack error that would allow Pratt to reclaim the lead, CCCC would score the next four points by taking advantage of two Beaver errors along with kills from Ronnebaum and Eski as the three-point advantage would prove to be enough to hold off PCC the rest of the way with another Ronnebaum kill ending the set.
 
Racing out to a 3-1 lead before giving up three straight Pratt points to trail 4-3, CCCC would continue what would be stretch of back-and-forth runs to open the second set with a 3-0 run of their own to go back up 6-4. The Beavers would get back within a point off a block before seeing Cloud County score 12 of the next 13 points as things would become all T-Birds to put the score at 18-6. Working with the double-digit lead would prove to be beneficial for CCCC as the Beavers would never be able to get back within single digits the rest of the set with Cloud County matching PCC with seven points each to finish out the set and grab a 2-0 lead over an opponent for the first time since October 4th.
 
Things would initially look to be another runaway set for the T-Birds in the third as a 7-1 start to the set would see Cloud County have another big lead to work with until a 3-1 spurt from Pratt that would bring the Beavers back within four at 9-5. Managing to push their lead back out to six at 11-5, Cloud County would maintain their lead before getting a PCC service error to kick off a 7-1 run that would see CCCC double up Pratt at 22-11. For as comfortable as an 11-point lead would seem in volleyball, the T-Birds would quickly see things become uncomfortable as a 9-0 run from PCC would suddenly turn things into a two-point contest at 22-20 with Cloud County being forced to use both of their timeouts. Finding Ronnebaum for a kill out of the second timeout to end the Beaver run, CCCC would ensure that Pratt would not have another chance to close the gap again as back-to-back kills from Eski would end both the set and the match for the T-Birds.
 
10 Attack errors in the opening set would prove to be the factor that would keep PCC in the set as Cloud County would hit just .140 in the set before recording attack percentages over .300 in each of the final two sets to finish with a .241 hitting percentage with 43 kills on 108 attacks. Pratt meanwhile would hit just .110 in the match while seeing the T-Birds hold advantages in both service aces (8-6) and blocks (4-2) as CCCC would ultimately have too much offense for the Beavers to overcome.
 
Matching a career-high with 20 kills, Eski would lead all players in the match in offense after adding four service aces and also contributing 10 digs. Ronnebaum would also reach double-digit kills by notching 10 on 17 total attacks for a .412 attack percentage while also having two blocks (one solo) for her sixth match of the year with double-digit kills. 38 of CCCC's 42 set assists would be dished out by Katelynn Brogan who would also add two kills and five digs while Brette Doile would have a team-high 12 digs. Pratt was led by a team-high nine kills from Alyssa Hunter while getting a match-best 18 digs from Lizzy Cisneros.
 
What's Next?
Region VI Tournament action is set to begin for Cloud County on Wednesday, November 1st as the T-Birds will be on the road against a yet-to-be-determined opponent. KJCCC play will conclude on Monday, October 30th with finalized standings then creating the eight-team tournament bracket. CCCC finished in a tie for fifth in the KJCCC standings with Garden City, but will be the number six seed as the Broncbusters won the regular-season series over the T-Birds.