CHEYENNE, WY – The #18 Laramie County Community College volleyball team was impressive in their Tuesday night home match with Western Nebraska Community College, handling the Cougars in straight sets, 26-24, 25-18, 25-14 to move to 20-4 on the season.
"It was super exciting," Sophomore Emily Bugas said. "We played a really consistent game and did what we wanted to do, and we defended our home court, so it felt good."
Set one was a tense affair and throughout the game, neither team was able to find more than three points of breathing room from the other as a packed house at Storey Gym as treated to a show.
LCCC found themselves down late 24-23 and after a Zach Shaver time out, the team was led by Elysiana Fonseca to three straight points on two kills and a block to come back and take the set 26-24.
Several long rallies tipped the balance of power during the set and Bugas said the team taking pride in their defense always gives them a chance in those.
"I think we kind of thrive when we are playing defense and we are all thinking about just getting the ball up. We are very hard-working players and we know that we don't want the ball to hit the floor so it's a nice feeling when we are getting a whole bunch of touches," she added.
Set two opened out with the momentum continuing the Golden Eagles site to a 5-0 advantage. After a timeout, WNCC rallied back to eventually take a lead at 12-11 and it seemed like the match would go back to a tight set.
LCCC took five of the next six points though, including back-to-back aces from Kate Ohlsen and didn't look back from their 16-13 lead, never trailing again the rest of the way to a 25-18 win and a 2-0 match lead.
In the third, LCCC again found the early break. After a tie at eight all, the Golden Eagles put the Cougars in awkward positions multiple times and won eight of the next nine rallies, again led by their serving game getting WNCC out of system, to take a 16-9 lead.
"I don't think I've every coached a match winning in three against a good team that we had zero service errors," Head Coach Zach Shaver said praising his team. "Usually if you have zero service errors you are serving to easy and the fact that we had five aces with zero errors mean's we kept pressure on them all night."
A long service run from Bugas gave the Golden Eagles their first double digit lead of the match at 21-11 in the third and they would trade points with Western Nebraska the rest of the way to a 25-14 win and a clean sweep of the Cougars.
"I think overall I'm just very proud of how our team played," Shaver said. "We were very low error. We made in game adjustments that helped us score points and we just played with a really solid energy from start to finish so we felt like we were never out of the match or out of the set at any point."
This marks only the second time in LCCC's history that they have defeated WNCC twice in one season, with the last coming in 2018 when the Golden Eagles finished the season as Region IX champions.
The team was paced by Addyson McArthur who finished the match with 22 kills, marking the first time in her career she finished a match with more than 20. Fonseca was also strong at the net with 12 kills.
Ohlsen continued her strong season setting the ball with 37 assists on the night and added a team high three aces. LCCC didn't make a single service error in the match.
On defense, the Golden Eagles were led by Demi Stauffenberg who had 15 digs along with 13 from Sadie Christiansen.
The team will look to keep the winning streak going as they host another pair of matches at Storey Gym on Friday against Western Wyoming Community College and again on Saturday for the Pink Out game against Casper College.
"If we just keep working on defense and the things that we need to going into that game and just playing consistent, confident volleyball, I think we will get those two big wins, and I'm excited," Bugas said.
More information on those matches can be found at www.golccc.com and tickets are available for purchase there as well.