Chase County third at McCook Invitational

    The Chase County volleyball team hit the court hard last week, facing two ranked teams, as well as two Class B schools.
    Unbeaten Sedgwick County came to Imperial Sept. 13 and handed CCS a five-set loss.
    The Longhorns jumped out to a 5-0 lead and soon doubled up on Sedgwick County, 14-7. But the Cougars responded with a 9-2 run to tie the set at 16. CCS was only able to side out for the rest of the 22-25 loss.
    The Longhorns turned it around in set two, forcing side outs by Sedgwick County while maintaining serve. CCS held an 18-10 lead before taking the 25-17 win.
    Chase County took a 2-1 lead in the match with a 25-20 win in the third set. CCS trailed 10-12 until it went on a five-point run. The Longhorns broke open a 19-19 tie to take the win.
    CCS Head Coach April Lambert said the Longhorns came out very strong with aggressive serving, which was their plan.
    “As the match went on, Sedgwick County adjusted their serve receive and were attacking a lot more in system,” Lambert added.
    The Cougars bounced back in the fourth set. CCS used its momentum to lead early in the set, before Sedgwick County took over. The match moved to a deciding fifth set with a 15-25 Longhorn loss.
    CCS never led in the fifth set 7-15 loss.
    “At times our serve receive and offense needed to be just a little bit better, so we will continue to work on all of those connecting pieces,” Lambert said, adding the Longhorns started to tip a little too much when they needed to stay on the net and keep attacking.  
    “For a young team, this game was a big step forward,” she said.
McCook tourney
    Saturday the Longhorns took third in the McCook Tournament.
    CCS opened the day with a win over Gering (3-5).
    The Longhorns were dominant in the first set, using a nine-point serving run by Landree McNair to take a comfortable 19-9 lead en route to a 25-13 win. Gering had an answer in the second set. After a 17-15 Chase County lead, the game tightened up. CCS had set point at 24-23, however Gering responded to send the game to a third set with a 25-27 CCS loss. The third set was a battle. The Longhorns took the lead for good at 20-19 and claimed a 25-21 win.
    Lambert said her team had a good attacking and serving game in the win.
    “Our hitters did a nice job finding the court and had 12 aces, led by Olivia Spady and Liz Reeves with four each,” Lambert said.
    CCS faced Cambridge (13-1), ranked fifth in Class D1, in the semifinals.
    With set one tied at 5-5, CCS was out scored 2-12. The Longhorns lost the match 15-25. Set two ended with the same score.
    Lambert said the Longhorns had to play defense a lot and couldn’t get in system.  
    “They had very good hitters, so we had to send a lot of free balls and couldn’t be competitive,” she said, adding Chase County didn’t have its best serving game.  
    The Longhorns claimed third place with a three-set win over McCook. CCS also beat the Class B Bison Aug. 30.
    Joee Clevenger led Chase County on two big serving runs to help the Longhorns to a 25-12 win in the first set.
    The second set was tied at 8-8 before a five-point run by the Bison put the set out of reach. CCS closed the gap to 19-21, but couldn’t get over the hump, losing the set 22-25.
    Set three was close, as well. Tied at 20-20, CCS was able to force McCook into side outs while the Longhorns put together two two-point runs and take the 25-22 win.
    “I thought we came out strong against McCook, and then the length of the day started to show,” Lambert said.
    Playing eight sets of volleyball on the day led to mental fatigue and frustration with errors, she added.
    “It was our best serve receive game on the day and we did well attacking. McCook recently took Ogallala to five sets, so they are much improved on the season and played us tight. Our girls showed some grit to gut it out and get the win in a tight third set,” Lambert said.

Up next
    CCS (5-6) traveled to Sidney Tuesday.
    “Sidney is Class B and a division one team with only two losses. It would be a great night to put together the strongest performance on all of our individual skills and play a consistent group of sets on the night,” Lambert said.
    The Sutherland tournament will be Saturday. Also in the bracket will be Dundy County Stratton (0-11), Hitchcock County (2-11), North Platte St. Pat’s (4-9), Overton (11-1), South Loup (7-3), Southwest (10-3) and Sutherland (6-7).
    On Tuesday, the Longhorns will head to Gothenburg (12-2) for a triangular that will include Perkins County (5-8). CCS will play the first two matches.