Volleyball beats up on a pair of slumping teams on Sophomore Night

Getting a small reprieve from a grueling schedule, the Cowley College volleyball team defeated a pair of inferior opponents Monday inside W.S. Scott Auditorium. The Lady Tigers started with a 25-21, 25-14, 25-14 victory over a winless Hesston College squad before knocking off the Friends University JV 25-15, 20-25, 25-8, 25-14.

"We played well enough to win, but we need to do better at stopping other teams' runs," Cowley head coach Steven Gream said.

The Lady Tigers have won four matches in a row and eight of its past nine to improve their record to 13-8 overall and 8-8 in the Jayhawk Conference Eastern Division. Cowley moved up two places in the conference standings with the win over Hesston and are now only two games out of third place in the Jayhawk East.

After a slow start which saw the first set against Hesston tied at 16-16, Cowley pulled away for the 25-21 win.

The Lady Tigers again started slow in set two, trailing 10-7 before Cowley closed the match on a 18-4 run. Set three saw Cowley lead from start to finish.

Against Hesston, Cowley was led by sophomore Iva Halacheva's 16 kills and .438 hitting percentage. Freshman Katie Morrison added eight kills, while Macy Shreffler chipped in with seven kills in the win.

Cowley honored its five sophomores prior to the match against the Friends JV. Sophomores are, Iva Halacheva, JuJu Eaton, Keely Solida, Cora Vineyard, and Caitie Lockett.

"They have all contributed on and off the court, and grown in the game," Gream said.

After dropping the second set to Friends by a score of 20-25, the Lady Tigers raced out to an 8-2 lead of the third set and cruised to a 25-8 win to lead two sets to one.

However, the pesky Falcon squad would lead the fourth set 10-9 before Cowley picked up its play and finished the match by scoring 16 of the final 20 points.

Halacheva again led the way with 27 kills as she moved into fourth place all-time in career kills with 851.

With freshman outside hitter Maddy Pitts sidelined due to injury, Morrison again came up big as she added 11 kills.

"Katie stepped in and played really well," Gream said.

Solida, who assisted on eight blocks in the match against Hesston, had six solo blocks in the win over the Falcons.

"Keely put on a blocking clinic," Gream said.

Freshman setter Gracie Story also played well, finishing with 45 assists and 15 digs.

Cowley will now prepare to host Highland (11-4) Thursday at 6:30 p.m. The Lady Scotties are currently second behind Johnson County in the Jayhawk East and defeated Cowley in straight sets back on February 13. However, Highland has dropped its past two matches in a row.

"We want to better our seed for the conference playoffs," Gream said. "Highland will make us work on defense and limit our errors on offense."