CASPER, WY – A marathon match on Friday night didn't fall the way of the Laramie County Community College volleyball team despite a hot start as they dropped a 3-2 match to Casper College 25-22, 25-16, 22-25, 17-25, 10-15, creating a three-way tie for second in the Region IX North standings.
The opening two sets were anything but back and forth though. LCCC got out to an early lead in the first set and held it from start to finish to take it 25-22 and get the early lead, and it was more of the same in set two.
After breaking a seven all tie, the Golden Eagles won 14 of the next 20 points to go up 21-13 and finished off the second 25-16 for a commanding lead on the road.
Set three was a grind for both teams. Neither side was able to lead by more than three at any point in a battle of attrition. LCCC jumped out to the early advantage but up 7-6, Casper College was able to win six of the next nine to take the lead at 12-10.
The Golden Eagles managed to keep it close but couldn't ever reclaim the lead and the Thunderbirds forced the match to a fourth set with the 25-22 win.
Casper kept up the strong play in the fourth set and put the Golden Eagles on their back heels with an 8-2 run to open the fourth. That lead would bel clipped down to five at 13-8, but that was the closest LCCC was able to get on the way to a 25-17 set win for the T-birds to force a fifth set.
LCCC got out to a very strong start in the fifth, going up 3-1 only to see Casper reel off six straight points to take a 7-3 lead.
The Golden Eagles made it close the rest of the way, but the lead stayed in the hands of the home side to take the set and match 15-10. LCCC didn't win the set, but offensively did what they needed to do, hitting .300 with six kills and no errors.
"That's kind of crazy that we did that, but we just made so many other errors that we didn't really give ourselves a chance to win it. If we had more swings because we passed better and held that hitting percentage than we definitely would have won that set," Head Coach Zach Shaver said.
Lea Susoy once again led the Golden Eagles in kills for the match with 16 followed closely by Adrianna Deming, who had one of her best matches of the season, hitting .200 and picking up 15 kills.
"(Deming) is definitely our second outside behind Lea and she is starting to focus on her attacking rather than just going up and hitting the ball. There is a bigger block at this level so she is learning how to deal with that bigger block well," Shaver said.
Addison Schreurs added another 47 assists to her season total along with a pair of aces and had a double-double with ten digs.
Susoy also had a double-double with 14 digs on the defensive side, but Deming was the top in the category with 21 on the night. Five Golden Eagles had double digit digs on the way to 85 as a team.
Maria Rawlek had a very strong game blocking for the Golden Eagles, earning six on the match, and had another nine kills offensively for 12 points in the match, only trailing Deming and Susoy for the team lead.
The schedule takes the Golden Eagles to Western Wyoming on Saturday to close out the first half of conference play against the Mustangs. Opening serve is scheduled for 2:00 pm from Rock Springs. More information can be found at www.golccc.com.