Men lose tough one in five sets

COUGAR WOMEN

The lady Cougars got back on track this weekend with a pair of wins over the Augustana Vikings in ACAC women’s volleyball action.

The Cougars took it to the Vikings on the road Friday night, winning handily 3-0 (25-12, 25-15 and 25-7).

The relative ease of the win prompted Cougars’ head coach Sandra Lamb to give some more playing time to some of her reserves while resting a couple of her key veterans for the majority of Saturday night’s matchup. The girls responded with another strong win, taking out the Vikings at home with another 3-0 win (25-15, 25-16 and 25-10).

“The girls that were in there deserved to be in there,” said Lamb. “They played really well last night. We’re still working on some things and we said from the beginning [this year]it was going to be by committee so it’s nice to let them have a couple of good matches to play.”

Kate Porta led the way for the Cougars with 11 kills and Olivia Grecu continues to have a strong season for the Cougs, but it was the players off the bench that really shined for the Cougars on this night.

Particularly noteworthy was the play of backup setter Jenna Smith, who doesn’t see a ton of playing time behind veteran Mackenzie Allen, but is a very important aspect of this Cougar team.

“Jenna came in last night and did a really good job for us, and we needed to get her some playing time. She’s strong and these types of games we can work with her on decision-making and how to run an offense,” said Lamb.

The Cougars jumped out to a quick lead in the first set, but the Vikings stayed resilient and only trailed 17-14, but three points would be as close as they’d come, dropping eight of the next nine points to lose 25-15. Kate Porta’s aggressive net play was the difference in the first set as the Vikings simply couldn’t shut her down on the outside.

The second set played out in similar fashion, but most of the Vikings points were coming off Cougar errors as the visiting team never threatened. The Cougars would take the second set 25-16.

The Vikings were completely overmatched on this one and couldn’t muster any type of counter attack. They had nothing left going into the third set and the Cougars easily finished off the match, winning the third and deciding set 25-10.

After their first loss last weekend all eyes were on the bounce-back abilities of the defending champions, and they seemed to handle it quite well. As Lamb would tell it, it’s all part of the process.

“All we can do is move forward and learn from it, and I think the girls are starting to really understand what happened [last weekend] and that’s the big thing. We can’t just write it off as a bad game. It’s better to have that happen now, and even going into this weekend we made the adjustments we needed to. Things are coming along.”

The Cougars move to 5-1 on the season, and will face the Lakeland Rustlers (3-3) twice at home next weekend on Friday Nov 11 (6 pm) and Saturday Nov 11 (1 pm).

COUGAR MEN

One night after a 3-1 win on the road against the Augustana Vikings, the Cougar men returned to Kenyon Court for the rematch. After a solid start, the Cougars faltered down the stretch in a heartbreaking five set match, dropping the decision 3-2 (22-25, 25-19, 25-20, 19-25, 12-15).

Colton deMan led the Cougars with 20 kills, but didn’t have any impact in the first set as sloppy net play and some tricky Viking tips at the net led to a 22-25 loss.

The Cougars came out strong in the second set, and got a spark on offense from third year man Jordan Lantz and newcomer Jordan Parkin as they began to look like the superior team. The Cougars built an early lead and would carry it throughout the set, easily winning 25-19.

deMan and company began to overpower the visiting Vikings in the third set, as they began to put up some really solid blocks at the net and deMan began raining down the kills from all over the court. Some unforced errors on behalf of the Vikings helped the Cougars pull away, and their hitting was firing on all cylinders as they took the third set 25-19 to go up 2-1.

The Cougars were easily the better team through three sets, but this matchup was a very strategic one as the Vikings seemed to make a lot of adjustments on the fly in their attempts to cope with the power of the Cougars’ outside hitters.

The Cougars jumped out to an early lead in the fourth set as deMan continued his onslaught, and led 16-10 at one point as the Cougars looked like they would walk away with another 3-1 decision. But some miscommunication between the Cougars’ front and back rows and some great blocks from the Vikings helped spark the visitors as they rattled off a 10-1 run to take the lead at 21-17.
 
A shift in momentum was on full display as each Cougar misstep and each Viking point led to more raucous cheering from the visitor side, while the Cougars were left simply shaking their heads. Head coach Shawn Sky began shuffling his lineup in attempt to stop the bleeding, but the fourth set belonged to the Vikings, 25-19.

The fifth and deciding set was no better for the Cougs, who fell into an early 1-4 hole before some key kills and a couple big blocks at the net pulled them to within one at 4-5.

The Cougars would retake the lead a few points later after a Vikings serve sailed into the net and a massive block at the net made the score 8-7 Cougars. Something about the energy on the Vikings’ squad seemed to take the wind out of the home team’s sails, however, as the Augustana men took the next four points to go up 12-8. The Cougars fought gamely, but it wasn’t enough, and the Vikings completed the comeback upset in the fifth set, winning 15-12 and taking the match 3-2.

The Cougars will look to get back on track next weekend against the Lakeland Rustlers (2-3) after having split their last two affairs. The Cougars are still looking good at 4-2 on the season, and sometimes young teams need to experience the type of adversity they faced tonight in order to grow as a cohesive unit.

The Cougar men will begin their two game home stand against the Rustlers on Friday, Nov. 11, tip-off is set for 8 p.m.