Plainswomen Get Two In Salt Lake City

The Plainswomen volleyball team traveled to Salt Lake City, UT to open their season up in the Salt Lake Community College Tournament.  The girls were excited to get their season kicked off right and were eager to see their pre-season work pay off. 

Their first game of the year and tournament was against Western Wyoming, who they knew if they played well, could come away with a victory.  The first set of the match, the ladies were playing well, but could not get a substantial lead over the Mustangs.  With the teams trading points back and forth, the Plainswomen finally won the set 25-23.  The second set NJC was able to play much better and took an early lead and kept it, being able to defeat them 25-14.  Lastly in the third set, the Plainswomen were able to dominate to win the set 25-12 which gave them their first win of the season.

The second match of the tournament, they faced the #5 ranked team in the nation, Salt Lake Community College.  Knowing that they would have their hands full, the ladies wanted to prove that they were a team that should be up for nominations for national rankings.  In the first set, the Plainswomen proved themselves they were worthy enough, but fell short at the end by losing 25-21.  In the second set, they started strong, but simple mistakes allowed the Bruins to pull ahead and win 25-18.  In the third set, once again, the Plainswomen started off strong and kept in there, but mental mistakes again led to a momentum shift and allowed SLCC to get the final set 25-19 and win the match.

The next day brought a new beginning for the Plainswomen volleyball team, which meant they would be able to have a fresh start and play towards getting two wins on the day.  The first match of the day would be against the Casper College Thunderbirds.  Although they were not a ranked team, the girls knew they needed to play their game to come out with the win. In the first set, the teams battled back and forth, but NJC ultimately snuck away with the last few points and won 25-21.  In the second, the set was no different than the first, and the Plainswomen had to buckle down and play solid to come away with the 25-20 win.  The third set proved to be their toughest and tested them to see what kind of adversity they could handle.  The Plainswomen found themselves behind with the T-Birds at match point 20-24.  The ladies were able to scratch and claw themselves back and go on a six point run to win the set 26-24, which would give them match.

With the team going through a tough battle to get the win, they wanted to keep their momentum rolling into the next match, which would be against the #11 ranked Snow College.  The Plainswomen knew if they played like they did against SLCC, they would put themselves in a position to get the victory.  The first set showed the girls that the Badgers could be defeated by only losing by a narrow margin of 25-19.  The second set was all NJC as the girls were firing on all cylinders and won the set 25-17. With a lot of energy being put into that set, Snow came out fast, got an early lead, and never looked back.  The Badgers won the third set 25-11, which NJC needed to regroup and get back to playing their kind of game.  The fourth set was yet another battle, but in the end, the Plainswomen were unable to hold on and lost 25-23. 

The Plainswomen went 2-2 on the weekend, which is a good start for an opening weekend against nationally ranked opponents.  The ladies will be on the road for the next two games before playing their first home match on Thursday September 14.