Cloud County Volleyball Team Posts Four-Set Home Victory Over Pratt
An efficient offensive night by the Cloud County Community College volleyball team would lead to a 3-1, four-set victory over Pratt Community College inside Arley Bryant Gymnasium on Monday, September 26th.
Back at home for the first time in five matches, Cloud County picked up their sixth win of the year and third in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference to improve to 6-11 overall and 3-5 in the KJCCC while Pratt falls to 2-13 overall and 0-7 in the KJCCC. After splitting the first two sets with CCCC winning the first set 25-16 and Pratt taking the second set 25-19, the T-Birds would close out the match with set scores of 25-13 and 25-14 to earn their sixth-straight win over Pratt and 14th win in the past 15 matches of the series.
A quick start from Cloud County would allow the T-Birds to jump out to a 7-3 lead on the Beavers in the opening set as a mix of offense from CCCC and errors from PCC would allow for the four-point lead. The T-Birds would push their lead to as many as five at 11-6 on a kill from Katelynn Brogan before seeing the Beavers fight their way back to within three at 11-8 before seeing Cloud County start to pull away with kills from Madison Ronnebaum, Doga Eski, and Camryn Wessel. Leading 18-11, the T-Birds would be able to outscore Pratt 7-5 down the stretch as the opening set never would be in jeopardy for CCCC.
The script would be flipped in the second set as three straight points to open the set for Pratt would set the tone in what would become Cloud County's worst offensive set of the evening. Seven of CCCC's 19 attack errors would come in the second, with many coming at inopportune times that would allow the Beavers to stay out in front of the T-Birds. Trailing by two at 16-14, Cloud County would get a kill from Wessel to get within one, but three of the next four points would be scored by PCC to open a three-point lead at 19-16 and set up what would become a 7-3 run that would give the Beavers enough space to close out a 25-19 set victory.
Following some early back-and-forth action in the opening stages of the third set, Cloud County would take control with the score sitting at 4-3 in favor of CCCC as five-straight points would turn the one-point lead into a six-point advantage. The T-Birds would continue to roll offensively in the set, notching 13 kills to just two attack errors and hit a match-high .379 and have a 92 percent (12-for-13) sideout percentage as the Beavers would never be able to find their way into the set that would end on a Brogan kill.
With momentum from the third-set victory and needing just one more set victory to close out the match, CCCC would waste little time as a 6-2 lead would quickly grow to 10-4 with a 4-0 run capped off by a Mariah Janda service ace. Pratt would respond with three-straight points to get within three at 10-7, but a 6-0 T-Bird run would erase that and then some to put the lead at 16-7 in favor of Cloud County. Despite trading points for nearly the rest of the match, Cloud County would comfortably take a 25-14 set four victory to close out the match as PCC would never be able to get closer than six points throughout the rest of the set.
As a team, CCCC would hit .291 in the match with all three set victories seeing the T-Birds hit over .300 in the respective sets while accounting for eight blocks as a team. Cloud County would also record five service aces and have 24 more kills than Pratt, while also edging the beavers in digs by a 49-48 tally.
Finishing with a match-best 13 kills on the night would be sophomore Kenzie Cooper as four different T-Birds would finish with double-digit kills. Ronnebaum would have her second-best offensive performance of the year by recording 11 kills and assisting on two blocks while both Eski and Wessel would finish with 10 kills each. Setting up the offense throughout the night would be the tandem of Brogan (23 set assists) and Brette Doile (19 set assists) as the duo would also have 13 total digs and one assisted block. Defensively, Zoe Bechard would record a match-high 16 digs and record six set assists to go along with two of CCCC's five service aces.
What's Next?
Cloud County is back home to open up the second half of KJCCC play double-round-robin scheduling as the T-Birds will host Butler for a 6:30 PM matchup on Wednesday, September 28th. Sitting at 12-7 overall, Butler is 6-1 in the Jayhawk Conference and in second place in the conference standings. In this season's earlier matchup on August 24th in El Dorado, Butler took a 3-0 decision over CCCC by scores of 25-23, 25-23, and 25-18.