MCC Volleyball splits Saturday triangular matches

The McCook Community College volleyball team missed an opportunity to pick up the team's 20^th win of the season and split a pair of matches in a home triangular Saturday. After beating Lamar Community College 3-1, MCC lost in five sets to Central Community College.

"We were making the same mistakes in both matches," said MCC Coach Hayley Kobza. "It's too far into the season to fix them so we have to fix the things we can and that is our effort and our mentality."

After the first set in the early game against Lamar, MCC sophomore setter Janie Sommer (Maxwell) was unavailable the rest of the afternoon because of a family scheduling conflict. Freshman outside hitter Jaycee Widener came on to fill the role of setter and finished with 57 set assists on the afternoon.

"Not having Janie hurt us a little bit but at the end of the day it wasn't an issue with how we played," Kobza said. "I thought Jaycee came in and did really well. I think I can count on one hand sets that were a little too far on the net or off the pin, but besides that she played fast, was a good leader and encouraged her hitters to do a better job."

She also added nine digs, four kills, and two assists blocks.

"We're just beating ourselves. When we're losing sets it's not because we're not capable of winning it's because we are giving them points," Kobza said. By her estimation there were 25 errors hitting errors against Central. "We basically gave them a set. We've got to clean up those errors."

Central improves to 17-17 having downed Lamar in the second match of the afternoon. The Raiders finish behind McCook in the Nebraska Community College Athletic Conference standings at 4-2. MCC won NCCAC with a 5-1 NCCAC mark.

MCC goes to 19-14 and will host the University of Nebraska Kearney JV team Monday at 7 p.m. on Pink Out night then close out the regular season Wednesday hosting No. 16 Western Nebraska (21-13) at 7 p.m.  

McCook CC 3, Lamar 1: MCC came out with a 25-11 win in the first set, lost the second set 24-26 then took the match with back-to-back 25-23 set wins to send Lamar to their 17^th straight loss. With the loss in the second match to Central Community College, the Runnin' Lopes fall to 3-28.

Victoria Thomas (freshman, Houston, Texas) led MCC on the attack with 16 kills, to go along with nine digs and one assist block. Thaynara Isabela (freshman, São Paulo, Brazil) had a double-double with 11 blocks, 10 blocks and one assist block. Sophomore Jordan Jerome (Rawlins, Wyo.) had eight kills, 12 digs, two aces and two assist blocks. Sophomore Mia Pena (Greeley, Colo.) had six kills, three assist blocks, and one ace.

Jisell Chumacero (freshman, Eaton, Colo.) had two kills, Amerika Jones (sophomore, Honolulu, Hawaii) had one kill and Makayla Brown (freshman, Colorado Springs) had one assist block.

Freshman Jaycee Widener (Wellfleet) led MCC with 22 assists and had two assist blocks. Sophomore Janie Sommer (Maxwell) had nine assists, two kills, four digs and one solo block.

McKenna Crews (freshman, Loveland, Colo.) led MCC with 13 digs and had four assists. Kaylee Palmieri, (sophomore, Gibbon) and Amanda Pizzol (freshman, São Paulo, Brazil) both had four digs.

Central 3, McCook CC 2: Central took the first two sets 25-20, 25-21 and MCC came back to take the third set 25-16, and the fourth set 25-22.

"After the fourth set there was no doubt in my mind we were going to win that match, there were a few coaching errors on my part and we should have won," Kobza said. "I'm going to take the blame on that."

The Raiders came out and blitzed MCC with the first seven points and went on to a 15-4 win.

Mia Pena led MCC and was tops in kills with 13 and in assist blocks with six. Victoria Thomas had 12 kills and three assist blocks. Amerika Jones had 10 kills and four assist blocks. Thaynara Isabela had six kills, six digs and one assist block and Makayla Brown had four kills and five assist blocks.

Jaycee Widener had a season-high 35 assists with nine digs, two kills and two assist blocks.

McKenna Crews had a team-best 30 digs in the match and three ace serves. Amanda Pizzol had nine digs and two aces. Kaylee Palmieri had seven digs.