MCC volleyball team starts Region with big 4-5 showdown

The McCook Community College volleyball team will enter the Region IX Division I tournament Wednesday as the fourth seed from the south division and take on the north’s fifth seed, Casper College, in an 11 a.m. (CDT) match.

MCC finished 19-16 during the regular season (4-6 in the Region IX south) and the team lost three matches to close out the schedule but Coach Hayley Kobza is looking for her team to finally put everything together.

“I think we need to hit he reset button on our minds to make sure we come in with confidence,” Kobza said.

The team set a puzzling trend in the first match of the season falling in the first two sets to Colorado Northwestern but came back to take the match 3-2. It was the first of 12 five-set matches the team played during the season. MCC went 7-5 when it went to a fifth set. Six of those seven wins came after MCC trailed in those matches 0-2 before coming back.

“We haven’t played our best match yet, so why not make it happen at regionals,” Kobza said.

Wednesday’s opponent has had a similar path to the win-or-go home game Wednesday. Casper (13-18, 3-7 in the Region IX north) comes into the tournament losers of four straight matches and six of their past seven.

“Casper is tall and talented,” Kobza said. They will want to win just as much as we will.”

The two teams met up Sept. 18 at Scottsbluff in the Wyo-Braska shootout and Casper came out a 3-1 winner, 25-14, 14-23, 19-25 and 25-18.

A trio of Casper sophomores key the offense in Kylee Painter (5-10) who led the team with 255 kills, Giulia Santuari (6-1) who had 234 and Jada Saguturaga (6-1) who was credited with 206.

Sophomore setter Kamille Nate led the T-Birds with 983 assists and freshman Brynne Hopeau-Lampitoc topped the team with 367 digs.

An MCC win over the Thunderbirds would move McCook into the double-elimination bracket and pit MCC against the north’s top seed (ranked No. 11 nationally) Central Wyoming in a 6 p.m. match.

Heading into Wednesday, MCC freshman Thaynara Isabela (São Paulo, Brazil) leads the team with 360 kills, sophomore Jordan Jerome (Rawlins, Wyo.) has 342, both ranking in the top 20 of all Division I junior college players. Jerome led MCC with 355 digs and Isabela second with 321.

Sophomore transfer Mia Pena (Greeley, Colo.) had 207 kills and led the team during the regular season in hitting percentage (.177).

Sophomore Janie Sommer (Maxwell) led MCC with 1,087 assists, the seventh most assists in the NJCAA.

She also led the team with 41 service aces, to go along with 101 kills, 299 digs and 49 total blocks. Sophomore Kaylee Palmieri (Gibbon) had 266 digs and freshman McKenna Crews (Loveland, Colo.) came on with 208.

MCC had the third most total attacks in the nation and were sixth with 1,567 kills on the season, fifth in assists. Part of those numbers are a result of the large number of sets played this season – 139, which was second most among all Division 1 NJCAA teams.

Seven MCC players topped 100 kills on the season. In addition to Isabela, Jordan, Pena and Sommer, three others topped the 100-kill mark including freshman Victoria Thomas (Houston, Texas) with 168, freshman Makayla Brown (freshman, Colorado Springs) who had 129, and sophomore Amerika Jones (Honolulu, Hawaii) with 105.

“We have a good group of sophomores, some of them who aren’t going on to play, so I feel like they’re going to want to come out and make regions their best games of the year,” Kobza said. “Some players who are not yet signed to play at the next level will be looking for this stage to boost their chances to show off their ability.”

For the past several Region IX Tournaments the south has fared much better head-to-head with teams in the north, but Kobza feels that this year’s tournament field feels more balanced between the north and south divisions.

Central Wyoming (No. 11) is the top ranked team in the region coming from the north. Northeastern Junior College (No. 13) and Western Nebraska (No. 18) represent the south. The north’s second seed, Northwest Wyoming (23-5) had the region’s top winning percentage (.821) but was not ranked in the NJCAA Top 25.

“I feel like it’s pretty even right now between the north and south with Casper, Eastern Wyoming, Northwest Wyoming coming in doing really good this year, along with Central Wyoming,” Kobza said.