SENATOBIA – The Northwest Mississippi Community College volleyball team battled through a determined effort from Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College on Wednesday night to extend their winning streak to 12 straight matches, moving to 6-0 in conference play thanks to a 3-0 sweep of the Bulldogs at Howard Coliseum.
The match opened with both sides trading leads through the opening 20 points of the first set with the Rangers pulling ahead 11-9. The lead stayed there until Gulf Coast made a push to tie the match at 18 before taking a brief lead at 18-19. Northwest was able to rally back and take the lead over the next two serves before holding off another late surge from MGCCC to take the opening set 25-23.
This was despite some early serving issues that saw the Rangers make seven service errors in the opening set. Their attacks more than made up for it though, with 15 kills and only three errors in the opening set.
Set two was a very different story. The Rangers broke it open early, going on a 10-2 run that forced Gulf Coast to take a timeout to stop the bleeding.
That may have bandaged the wound, but it didn't close the door on the Rangers who continued to build the lead on the way to a dominant 25-11 showing to go up 2-0 in the match.
Gulf Coast pushed back in the third set despite another early run from the Rangers who went up 3-1 but NWCC surrendered the lead in a set that had more ties than the previous two combined.
The Bulldogs took their first lead at 7-8 and again at 11-12 and NWCC struggled getting the lead back with ties at 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20, and 21.
The Rangers finally wore down the wall at the net at 21-all, taking the lead back for the first time since it was 11-10, and from there they closed out the match in style, winning the final four points to sweep their way to a 12
th straight win, closing the set 25-21.
Head Coach
Allison Burchyett said she was pleased with the way her team took momentum and held onto it.
"I was proud of us in the second set especially because we came out and got the momentum. There was a lot more back and forth in the third set and we came back and rallied but I was proud of my team for holding steady and finishing that in set three."
Northwest saw a very balanced attack led by a nine-kill nights from
Ariana Woods and
Chloe Fesperman and eight more from
Adalyn Callahan. Nine Rangers finished with at least one kill in the match.
The offense was guided by three setters with
Dallas White leading the way with her 16 assists,
Saylor Bryant coming off the bench in the second set to tally ten in the final two sets, and
Chloe Rodriguez splitting time as an attacker and a setter to finish with six assists and three kills.
The team registered six aces in the match paced by freshman
Jania Rose who had three. The blocking game wasn't bad, but only picked up three solo blocks from Woods, Fesperman, and
Ava Robbins.
"One of our goals is to be balanced," Burchyett said. "You can't really tell who the ball is going to and we have lots of people who can contribute so that's one of our goals is to have people that are very close in kills. And that's our goal on defense is we want people close in digs as well. We want the balance team-wide."
The win moves the Rangers to 15-2 on the season and 6-0 in MACCC play as they have the weekend to prepare for a road trip to Jones College, the 2024 Region 23 champions, on Monday at 5:00 pm in Ellisville.
More information on that match and the full NWCC volleyball schedule can be found at nwccrangers.com. You can also follow along with Ranger athletics on the NWCC athletics social media accounts.
