Your future, our focus
Wins Come Against Great Falls, Sheridan
The Northwest College Trapper volleyball team remained anchored at .500 for the season following a split of four tournament games in Idaho last weekend. The Trappers won a non-conference game against Sheridan, as well as a game against the University of Great Falls JV team.
The Trappers weren’t as fortunate, falling to Central Arizona and the tournament host, No. 2 North Idaho College.
“We regressed a bit to some of our early-season tendencies,” said Trapper head coach Shaun Pohlman, who clearly hoped for a better showing.
The Trappers dropped both of their Friday games, falling 25-20, 19-25, 25-16, 25-13 to Central Arizona. Against North Idaho, the Trappers were swept 25-15, 25-17, 25-15.
“Our serving was really poor against Central Arizona,” said Pohlman. “We didn’t miss a lot of serves, but we weren’t aggressive with our serves so they were able to stay within their system for a lot of the game.”
Ana Jakovljevic finished with a double-double, producing 11 kills and 10 digs to go along with three rare Trapper aces in the contest. Felicity Zegarelli added 10 kills while Olivia Rogers and Nicolette Bloomer added nine apiece.
“Offensively, our kill numbers look good,” said Pohlman. “We distributed the attack, so that tells me the trouble was in some other facet of the game.”
Katie Burnett finished with a team-best 22 digs.
“Against North Idaho, we were able to give a better effort, but it was against a much better team,” Pohlman said. “Our serving still wasn’t where we want it to be. Our ace-to-error ratio was pretty low.”
Jakovljevic had seven kills. Becky Downs added four kills on .500 hitting as the Trappers’ offense was mired in check for much of the contest.
Things picked up for the Trappers on day two of the tournament. Northwest swept the University of Great Falls JV squad 25-21, 25-16, 25-21. They capped the tournament with a 25-10, 25-19, 17-25, 25-14 victory over Sheridan to bring their record for the season to a level 8-8.
Jakovljevic had 17 kills in each of the two Saturday games. Zegarelli had three aces and Burnett finished with 23 digs.
“It was a pretty straightforward win,” said Pohlman. “We came out with better focus.”
Against Sheridan, Zegarelli and Downs each added eight kills. Nicoleta Titonea added a .500 hitting performance.
“It’s nice to see others step up on the attack side,” said Pohlman. “We don’t want to always be the team where one person has like 1,000 times more kills than everyone else.”
Titonea added five block assists and Downs had six block assists in the contest. As a team, the Trappers produced 10 ace serves in the contest.
Northwest College travels to the Wyo-braska tournament this weekend in Torrington and Scottsbluff, Neb. The Trappers are scheduled to meet Dawson, Lamar, Cowley County and tournament co-host Western Nebraska.
“Cowley County is the defending national champion at Division II,” said Pohlman. “Western Nebraska is ranked nationally. I’m not sure where they’ll be in this week’s poll, but they’re a good team. We’ll have to step back up and play some good volleyball this weekend.”