Lady Tiger volleyball rallies for five-set win at Allen

Facing an Allen Community College squad that they are chasing in the standings, the Cowley College volleyball team rallied from a two sets to one deficit to knock off the Lady Red Devils 19-25, 25-17, 25-27, 25-23, 15-13 Saturday in Iola, KS.

The victory was just the second road win of the season for the Lady Tigers as they improved to 7-7 overall and 4-7 in the Jayhawk Conference Eastern Division. Allen drops to 6-7 overall and 5-7 in the Jayhawk East.

Trailing two sets to one, Cowley found themselves down 14-9 in set four. However, the Lady Tigers would score the next eight points and came back to win the fourth set by a score of 25-23.

Cowley trailed only once at 1-0 in set five and were ahead 14-10 before Allen scored three straight points to pull within 14-13. However, Lady Tiger sophomore Iva Halacheva came through with her 28^th kill of the night to finish off the win of the match.

"We have been in this type of situation so many times this season," Cowley head coach Steven Gream said. "We finally found the push we needed in order to win the match. Timely serving, hitting, and scrappy defense allowed us to have the scoring runs we needed."

Cowley had three hitters finish in double figures in kills. Halacheva led the way with her 28 kills, while freshmen Macy Shreffler and Maddy Pitts added 12 and 11 kills, respectively.

"Iva continues being a force on the outside, while Macy and Maddy stepped up to take some of the pressure off Iva," Gream said.

Freshmen Erin Thompson and Gracie Story also played well with Thompson finishing with 21 digs and Story adding 50 assists.

The Lady Tigers will face another team that is just ahead of them in the conference standings when they host Cloud County Community College (7-5) Monday at 6:30 p.m. The Lady T-Birds have won three matches in a row to improve to 6-5 in the Jayhawk East and defeated Cowley in four sets back on February 1 in Concordia, KS.

"Whoever makes the fewest amount of errors will win," Gream said. "We hope to use this win against Allen as a spring board for things to come."