Lady Tiger volleyball team advances to District B title match

Hoping to make it back to the national tournament, the No. 3-ranked Cowley College volleyball team made it one step closer with a 25-13, 25-20, 25-15 victory over No. 18-ranked Neosho County Wednesday in the District B Tournament played inside W.S. Scott Auditorium.

The Lady Tigers advance to face Kansas City in a rematch of last year's District B title match that Cowley won in straight sets. The teams will square off again Saturday at 12:30 p.m. at Friends University in Wichita, KS, with a national tournament berth on the line.

Leading Wednesday's opening set by a score of 12-8, Cowley would use a 10-2 run to pull away from the Panthers.

In set two, Cowley was trailing 14-8, and 16-14 before Lady Tiger head coach Steven Gream called timeout. Following the timeout, Cowley would score six of the following seven points to lead 20-15 and went on to the 25-20 victory.

"I told them in the timeout that we just got to be us," Gream said. "We relaxed a little bit but came out of the timeout and bounced back."

Cowley would then race out to a 10-3 lead in the third and final set and cruised to the 25-15 win to advance to Wichita. The victory, Cowley's eighth in a row, improves the Lady Tigers' record to 37-3 on the season.

Neosho finishes the season with a record of 24-10.

Of the eight players that saw the court for the Lady Tigers, five were sophomores that played their final match ever on Dan Kahler Court.

"I can't be prouder of this sophomore group. They have been good leaders and did what we asked of them on the court," Gream said.

Sophomores Laci Beougher (12 kills), Landry Cate (seven kills, three aces), and Sydney Unruh were key to Wednesday's win.

"Landry and Lacy have grown a lot as hitters and have taken off with this offense," Gream said.

Fellow sophomores Gyongyver Araczki and Rachele Tessari added eight kills apiece, while Tessari had three of Cowley's nine service aces to move into second place on the Lady Tigers' career list with 162 aces.

Freshmen Anna Kiss (10 kills), Vivianna Solis (40 assists), and Sadie Kabisch (four digs) also contributed to the victory.

Cowley will now turn its attention to Saturday's match against Kansas City (24-9). The Blue Devils enter Saturday's match as winners of six matches in a row.

"KCK is a quality team that always puts up a fight against us," Gream said. "They are well coached and have their main players back healthy. It should be a quality match, just like last year when we met them in the district tournament. We have to make sure we are prepared and execute our game plan while doing what we do. We are asking all of our Cowley community to come up and cheer us on at the match. The energy we had last year at Friends University was amazing for our players."