Lady Tiger volleyball team gets past last-place Labette

Playing on the road at last-place Labette Community College on Thursday, the Cowley College volleyball team found the competition to be a little harder than they anticipated in the 23-25, 25-13, 25-18, 25-22 win.

Cowley led 15-9 in the opening set before watching the Lady Cardinals' rally for the 25-23 win.

"Labette came in fired up with it being their Sophomore Night and we could not combat their surge," Cowley head coach Steven Gream said.

The Lady Tigers would score the first three points of set two and never trailed in the 25-13 win. Cowley would then race out to a 9-3 lead in set three and cruised to the 25-18 victory.

Looking to finish off the match the Lady Tigers would score the first four points of set four and led 17-11 before Labette rallied to pull within 21-20. Fortunately, Cowley would regroup to pull out the 25-22 win.

"Labette had the momentum in the fourth set, we just managed to get a few balls down to pull away," Gream said. "We were happy to get the win, but did not play to the level we are capable of."

Cowley has now won three matches in a row to improve to 16-9 overall and 10-9 in the Jayhawk Conference Eastern Division. Labette, losers of 14 matches in a row, is now 1-19 overall and 1-17 in the conference.

Lady Tiger sophomore Iva Halacheva had her 11^th double-double of the season, finishing with 21 kills and 10 digs. Freshmen Maddy Pitts and Macy Shreffler added 12 and 10 kills, respectively. While, setter Gracie Story finished with 45 assists and six digs.

Cowley will wrap up regular season play by hosting conference champion Johnson County Monday at 6:30 p.m. The No. 5-ranked Lady Cavaliers are 20-2 overall and ran away with the Jayhawk East title with a conference mark of 17-2.

"Johnson is very well coached," Gream said. "We played them close at their place and hope being at home our players will be excited to face them. It should be an offensive slugfest."