STERLING, CO – The Laramie County Community College volleyball team completed the reverse sweep of Western Nebraska Community College on Wednesday night to open the Region IX Tournament with a 3-2 win. The Golden Eagles dropped the opening sets 25-19 and 25-18 before roaring back to win the final three sets 25-23, 25-13, and 15-11.
"We didn't start off the way we wanted," Head Coach Zach Shaver said. "We were not earning enough points and we were making too many errors. Once we corrected that we were in good shape. We just needed not to let the stress of game five get to us and I thought we did a good job of staying calm and relaxed and got the job done."
The win moves LCCC into the Region IX semifinals on Thursday night at Northeastern Junior College, where they will face the host team in the second match at 6:00 pm.
Set one started out well for the Golden Eagles, jumping out to a 3-0 lead but Western Nebraska evened the set at five all before rolling off an 11-5 run to go up 26-10.
LCCC evened out the ride the rest of the way but found themselves trailing after the opening set for the third straight match.
Set two seemed to start a dangerous trend. The Golden Eagles were down 8-1 before a timeout by Shaver and while they did close the gap to 8-6, WNCC never let them get closer than that, pushing ahead 22-14 on the way to taking the first set 25-18.
"I think in the first two sets the girls were bringing energy onto the floor, but something wasn't clicking," Freshman Outside Hitter Addyson McArthur said. "After we switch some things up and in the third set came out with a new fire for playing for each other."
Set three showed a change in attitude almost immediately. Neither team was able to earn a break until it was 13-12 in favor of the Cougars but then it was all LCCC for the next nine points, going on a 7-2 run to get some separation.
"We talked about continuing to improve our aggression after the first few sets whether it was serving or hitting to get them out of system. They are a great team but that was something we picked up on film," McArthur said.
The Cougars rallied back late themselves on a four-point service run from Shanelle Martinez, but it would be too late to keep the Golden Eagles from the 25-23 win to keep their hopes alive.
In the fourth the two sides again played neck-and-neck. The match was 10-9 in favor of LCCC when Nicole Shaver stepped to serve and led the team on an 11-0 run to go up 21-9 and all but sealed the win in the fourth 25-13 to force the fifth set.
In the third five-set match of the season for LCCC the Golden Eagles knew it was important to get the first break and did at 7-5. The Cougars never were able to tie the set from there, falling by a final of 15-11 and moving LCCC into the winner's bracket and the 6:00 pm match Thursday night.
The Golden Eagles offense was led by McArthur and Stauffenberg who both had 15 kills unofficially. Elysiana Fonseca added another 12 and McArthur said having a middle have that big of a performance really opened things for the outsides.
"Having the middle and the right side as an option helps the outsides to have more one on one situations and find our kills a little bit better," she said.
LCCC switched to a 6-2 and had two main setters in the match. Kate Ohlsen led the team with 34 assists and Nicole Shaver had ten.
The Golden Eagles served for five aces in the match and at the net finished with seven blocks as a team, led by Famke Zomer and Fonseca who both had four.
"Our serving pressure got them out of system and that allowed our block to know where they were going with it ahead of time," Shaver added. "We were talking about increasing our serving pressure and our attacking aggression and once we did those two we were in good shape."
The Region IX Championships continue Thursday with four more match. LCCC will be in the final match of the day at 6:00 pm against Northeastern Junior College after they defeated Central Wyoming College 3-1. More information including streaming information can be found at www.golccc.com.