Spartans' volleyball struggles continue

Better play toward the end of the third set gave the Southwestern Community College volleyball fans plenty of reason to get noisy Wednesday in the home-opener.

Yet another Spartans suffered another three-set loss, this time to Iowa Lakes Community College.

The Lakers won by scores of 25-17, 25-21, and 28-26.

A slow start put SWCC at a disadvantage early on and prevented the girls from playing with some needed confidence at home.

“We need to come out stronger from the get-go,” SWCC head coach Aleesha Cleaver said. “That being said, the things that are hurting us are just silly mistakes: missing serves, net plays that kill the momentum, that’s what’s hurting us, because we’ll have those at crucial times.”

Some poor serve receives prevented the Spartans from getting in a groove and playing in a flow early on. As the match wore on into the second set, the Panthers found ways to begin scrounging together points. A run from the Lakers quickly changed the second set score from 18-14 to a 25-17 victory.

In the third set, the Spartans quickly lost the first two points but roared back to the 6-3 lead.

“I think our block came together that last game,” Cleaver said. “That kind of gives us more momentum,” Cleaver added.

Sydney Maynes and Brooke Decker began coming together at the net, making points harder to come by for the Lakers. For the first time all night, Iowa Lakes looked frazzled.

From there, the match became an exercise in trying to keep the Lakers at bay. Some strong play from Ashley Kopplin and the back row in digging the ball, as well as strong hitting from Jade Petersen, Ashley Kuhn, Decker and Maynes helped the Spartans up their lead to 22-16.

A quick run from the Lakers cut into the advantage. A Kuhn kill made it 23-21 before Iowa Lakes responded yet again. The Spartans lost game point opportunities with leads of 24-23 and 25-24 before falling.

“I think now we’re kind of getting in the groove a little bit. Once we get Chloe (Swirczek) back, I think things will hopefully turn around a little bit for us,” Cleaver said.

SWCC will travel to Fort Dodge and Marshalltown this weekend. On Friday, the Spartans will play Riverland Community College and Briar Cliff University. On Saturday at Marshaltown, the Spartans will square off with Marshalltown Community College and Lincoln Land Community College.

Former SWCC basketball standout David Kragel, formerly of Corning, was honored before the game as the school’s fourth inductee into it’s athletic Hall of Fame. More about Kragel’s induction will be found in Friday’s paper, and video of comments made by Kragel are in video form on the News Advertiser website under the video tab.

Struggles at Highland

For the second consecutive weekend the Southwestern Community College volleyball team hit the road for a slate of games and came away without a match win.

The Spartans fell four times at the Highland Community College Invitational in Highland, Kansas.

SWCC fell in straight sets in each of its four matches. The Spartans fell to Barton 16-25, 13-25, 15-25. They fell to Ellsworth 20-25, 16-25 and 19-25. They took a loss to Highland 19-25, 10-25 and 16-25, Finally a loss to Labette 19-25, 19-25, 23-25 secured the fourth straight loss.

The Spartans will face off against Ellsworth once more in Iowa Community College Athletic Conference play in Iowa Falls on October 19.

Spartans assistant coach Rand Hazelton noted that Sydney Maynes was the only hitter who got good things going for the Spartans, and that freshman libero Ashley Kopplin carried the back row for the Spartans.

“We struggled in a lot of areas this weekend,” Hazelton said. “We couldn’t put together multiple aspects of our games at once, and most disappointing was our lack of communication. I am proud of how our ladies finished our final set against Barton. It would have been very easy to give up at that point, but instead we put together our best effort of the weekend.”