MCC improves to 6-0 with Friday sweeps

The McCook Community College volleyball team improved to 6-0 on the season with a pair of Friday wins at the MCC Labor Day Weekend Tournament. MCC opened with a 3-0 win over Hill College (Texas) and followed that up with a 3-1 win over Iowa Western Community College.

In the second match, MCC went up 2-0 over Iowa Western, winning 25-23 and 27-25 but the Reivers won the third set 25-10 before MCC took the final set 25-23.

“All-in-all, we won two matches, but we struggled a lot today,” said MCC Coach Hayley Kobza. “Especially if you watched our last match, in our third set we didn’t play good volleyball. We didn’t compete, we didn’t individually do our jobs, and we just didn’t play together as a team.”

MCC improves to 4-0 on the season. Hill College goes to 0-2 on the year and Iowa Western goes to 3-3.

The Lady Indians close out their eight-game season-opening homestand Saturday with a pair of matches in the Peter and Dolores Graff Events Center.

At 9 a.m. MCC hosts No. 9 Indian Hills Community College (6-3) and close out the tournament with a 1 p.m. match against Fort Scott Community College of Kansas (2-5).

“We’ve got to focus in on playing strong volleyball our first match of the day. It’s going to be tough, and we’ve got to come in and get to work, be awake and ready to compete.”

Indian Hills downed Western Nebraska 3-0 Friday and beat Hutchinson CC 3-1. Fort Scott lost to North Platte 3-1 and to Lamar 3-0.

Up-to-date information about MCC volleyball including livestream links, schedule, statistics, rosters, photos and more can be found on the MCC Athletics website, www.mccindians.com 

 

McCOOK CC 3, HILL COLLEGE 0: After trailing 16-20 in the first set, the Lady Indians fought back to win the first set 27-25, then followed that up with a pair of straight-set wins, 25-15, 25-20.

“It was a little bit of a rough start, but we ended up coming in and just taking care of business which is making sure we get the win at 25,” said MCC Coach Hayley Kobza.

Sophomore Romina Martinez Castro (Cochabamba, Bolivia), led MCC on the attack with 11 kills and added five digs, three blocks and two aces. Caylin Barnett, sophomore, McCook, had eight kills, seven digs, one ace and one block. Freshman Charlee Russick (Berthoud, Colo.) added seven kills, three blocks, three digs and an ace.

Freshman Ella Verts (Marshall, Mo.) led the Lady Indians with four blocks and had three kills. Sophomore middle Rowan Tribelhorn (Yuma, Colo.) had three blocks and four kills.

Freshman Cibeles Bothwell (Spring, Texas) paced the defense with 12 digs and Megan Walker (freshman, Haxtun, Colo.) had all 25 of the team’s assists.

“We worked on some skills this week and it did carry over to this match, but we have got to work on all of the skills at the same time and carry those forward to our next matches,” said Kobza.

This was Hill College’s first match of the season. The Rebels are from Hillsboro, Texas.

 

McCOOK CC 3, IOWA WESTERN CC 1: After a 25-23 win in the first set, Lady Indians were down 19-24 in the second but fought off five straight set points before claiming a 27-25 win. The Reivers rolled to a 25-10 win in the third set and MCC was able to make key plays down the stretch for the match win 25-23.

Romi Martinez Castro led MCC with nine kills to go along with six digs and two blocks. Rowan Tribelhorn had eight kills and a block. Caylin Barnett had seven kills, five blocks and seven digs.

Ella Verts led the way on the block with eight to go along with two kills. Charlee Russick had four kills and four digs.

Freshman Abby Thompson (Bison, S.D.) had five digs, four assists, two kills and two blocks. Freshman Ailynn Wright (Sterling, Colo.) had five digs, a block and an assist.

Megan Walker led MCC with 17 assists, one ace and a kill and freshman Audrey Holm (Paxton) had one ace serve.

Cibeles Bothwell had 14 digs and four assists.