CONCORDIA -- Taking on the first of three ranked opponents this week, the Cloud County Community College volleyball team came out swinging on Monday night to make a statement in a 3-1 upset of number 15-nationally ranked Cowley Community College inside of Arley Bryant Gymnasium.
Scores of the match would be 25-15, 25-21, 23-25, and 25-23 in favor of the T-Birds as CCCC improves to 2-1 on the year and 2-1 in Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference action. Cowley falls to 2-2 on the year and 1-2 in Jayhawk Conference action with both of their losses coming on the road.
Cloud County would waste no time jumping out to an early lead in set one, scoring the first five points of the set to force a Tiger timeout as the run would be pushed out to 6-0 before seeing Cowley get on the board. Lizzy Pfortmiller would then get a kill and service ace on back-to-back points to put the T-Birds up 11-4 as Cowley would have no answer for CCCC in a set that saw Cloud County hit .480 with 13 kills on 25 total attacks. The set would include eight kills from sophomore Geraldyn Palacios as the T-Birds would record just one total error in the set.
Things would continue to go the way of the T-Birds to start the second set as a 7-2 run to start the set would give Cloud County some room to work with moving forward throughout the set. Cowley would be forced to burn a timeout as the CCCC lead would grow to 9-3 following a Pfortmiller kill as the T-Birds would continue to show their offensive dominance until a 5-0 Cowley run would bring the Tigers within a point at 15-14. Cloud County would then score three of the next four points to push their lead back out to 18-15 as the lead would wind up holding for the rest of the set with the T-Birds pulling away for a 25-21 victory to go up two sets to zero on a stunned Cowley team.
Another strong start by Cloud County would see the T-Birds go up 4-1 in the early moments of the third set as CCCC would eventually double-up the Tigers 10-5 following back-to-back kills from Natasha Dooley. An 8-1 Cowley run would tie things up at 13-13 before the two teams would trade the next two points to keep things all knotted up going into the back half of the set. Cowley would eventually manage to take their first lead of the match on a Macy Shreffler kill that would be part of a 4-0 run to make the score 18-16. The T-Birds would manage to tie things up at 18-all, but it would be all the closer that Cloud County could get as Cowley would manage to pull out a 25-23 set victory to force a fourth set in the match.
Seven of the first 10 points of the fourth-set would be scored by Cloud County as the T-Birds would once again force Cowley into an early timeout in a set as the Tigers would have no answer Dooley or Delaney Herold. Eight of the next 12 points would wind up being scored by the Tigers to pull even at 11-11, but the T-Birds would have a response by scoring four straight to go up 15-11. Cloud County would manage to keep the Tigers just out of reach for the next several points as the lead would hover between two and four points until three straight Shreffler kills pulled Cowley even at 21-21. Needing a response to close things out and end the match, Cloud County would turn to Palacios once more as the Medellin, Columbia native would score two of the final four points for CCCC which allowed the T-Birds to take a 25-23 set victory and pull off their first major upset of the year.
As a team, Cloud County would finish the match with a .280 attack percentage while allowing the Tigers to hit just .185 as a team. 25 of CCCC's 56 kills would come courtesy of Palacios, with Herold recording 11 and Dooley adding nine. Jaycee Burghart finished the match with a match-best 47 set assists while also adding seven digs as the T-Birds would also record 11 total blocks.
What's next?
Cloud County will look to carry the momentum over to Thursday night as the T-Birds will host number 12 Highland Community College at 6:30 p.m. The number-10 ranked Scotties improved to 3-1 on the year and 2-1 in KJCCC play Monday night with a three-set sweep of Allen at home. Highland's only loss this season came at the hands of number seven-ranked Johnson County as the Cavaliers pulled out a five-set home victory in the season opener for the Scotties on Jan. 28.
--cloudtbirds.com--