Cloud County Volleyball Team Suffers Three-Set Home Defeat to #20 Butler
After battling back from a 15-9 deficit to force extra points in the opening set, the Cloud County Community College volleyball team would never be able to find a momentum-shifting moment in front of their home crowd as part of a 3-0 defeat to number-20 nationally-ranked Butler Community College inside Arley Bryant Gymnasium on Wednesday, September 28th.
Falling to 6-12 overall, Cloud County now holds a 3-6 mark in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference. Butler improves to 13-7 overall and 7-1 in the KJCCC to remain just one game back of first-place Seward County in the conference standings.
A slow start from the T-Birds would see the Grizzlies take full advantage as a 7-1 run after a split of the opening two points of the match would propel BCC out to an 8-2 lead. Getting a much-needed service error from Butler to re-gain serve, CCCC would take advantage of the opportunity with freshman Madison Ronnebaum at the service line with back-to-back service aces to pull back within three at 8-5. The T-Bird rally would continue over the next four points, with three more being scored by the Cloud County offense to cap off a 6-1 run and get back within a point at 9-8. Responding with a 6-1 run of their own, the Grizzlies would once again find themselves back out to a six-point lead at 15-9 before the set once again would tighten back up. Slowly cutting into the BCC lead, Cloud County would get within two at 17-15 on a kill from Kenzie Cooper but see Butler score back-to-back points to go back up by a four-point margin. The deficit for CCCC would remain between two and four points up until a Zoe Bechard service ace 22-20 to pull the T-Birds within one as Cloud County would be forced to fend off two straight set points to tie things at 24-24. With the set guaranteed to go to extra points, Butler would respond and kill off any potential building CCCC momentum with back-to-back kills to end the set and take a 26-24 opening set victory.
The opening stages of the second set would not see nearly as large of an early gap between the teams as both Cloud County and Butler would be able to keep pace with each other as no lead would be larger than three throughout the opening 16 points of the set. Holding a 9-7 lead, BCC would begin to string points together by going on a 4-1 run to go up 13-8 before seeing the T-Birds respond with three straight points to get back within two at 13-11. The two-point deficit would be all the closer that CCCC would get for the rest of the set, however, as Butler would begin to once again find its rhythm and score three-straight points as part of a larger 9-2 run that would put things at a nine-point advantage for the Grizzlies to eventually pull away and win by a score of 25-15.
Looking for any type of momentum that they could build in the third set, the T-Birds would find themselves in a back-and-forth opening as points would be traded to see ties at 4-4 and 5-5 in the early stages. Following a Ronnebaum kill to tie things at 5-5, Butler would begin to build momentum of their own by scoring the next six points to go up 11-5 and follow up a 2-0 Cloud County spurt with another four points of their own to take a commanding 15-7 lead that would force CCCC to use up both of their timeouts in the set. The deficit for Cloud County would remain at eight throughout much of the remainder of the set as the T-Birds would not be able to find a way back into the set as the Grizzly lead would never drop below six points the rest of the way in what would become a 25-18 set victory to close out the match.
Opening the match with an efficient .364 attack percentage in the opening set, Cloud County would be held to attack percentages of .161 and .143 the rest of the way to finish with an attack percentage of .228 with 30 total kills coming on 92 attacks and nine attack errors. Butler would hit a scorching .407 in the match with all three sets seeing the Grizzlies hit over .400 despite committing 11 attack errors on 91 total attacks to go along with 48 kills. The service line would be an advantageous spot for both teams throughout the night, with Butler outdoing the T-Birds by a 12-7 tally despite CCCC getting seven total blocks to the four recorded by BCC.
Offensively, both Doga Eski and Ronnebaum would tie for the team lead with nine kills and attack percentages over .400 as Ronnebaum would finish with a .438 attack percentage (nine kills, two attack errors, 16 attempts) while Eski would hit .429 (nine kills, zero errors, 21 attempts) for the match. Providing a team-best 14 set assists would be freshman Katelynn Brogan to go along with four assisted blocks and three digs while Kenzie Cooper would finish with six kills and eight digs. Butler would be led by a match-high 11 kills from Kennedy Kelly while Rainey Aven provided 31 of BCC's 41 set assists.
What's Next?
Six of Cloud County's next seven matches will come on the road beginning on Saturday, October 1st when the T-Birds head west to take on Colby for a 2 PM matchup from the Colby Event Center. The Trojans are 10-8 overall and 2-8 in the KJCCC following a 3-0 road loss to Seward County on Wednesday night and have lost three straight matches. In this season's earlier matchup between Cloud County and Colby, CCCC would sweep the Trojans in straight sets for their first three-set sweep over Colby in nearly 12 years. The T-Birds will enter the match looking to break another long historical streak as Cloud County last swept a regular-season series from Colby in the 2014 season with a four-set home victory and five-set road victory.