The road was not kind to Allen County Community College’s volleyball team over the weekend or on Monday.
Allen County lost four matches in the Central Community College Invitational at Columbus, Neb., Friday and Saturday. Then dropped a 25-13, 23-25, 25-15, 25-10 decision to host Longview Community College in Lee’s Summitt, Mo., on Monday.
The Red Devils are now 13-17 overall. They take a 3-5 Jayhawk Eastern Division mark into Wednesday’s conference match at home against NJCAA Division II top-ranked Cowley County Community College. The match starts at 6:30 p.m. in the ACCC gym.
On Monday, Nicole Rockhold delivered 18 kills at the net for Allen County and Allison Jenicke had 13 kills. Andrea Miller had three kills and Leesha Plagens had two kills.
Allen County took on three of the top 15 ranked teams in NJCAA Division II volleyball over the weekend in the Central tournament.
Central of Columbus is ranked 15th and beat the Red Devils 25-17, 25-12, 25-13 to open the tournament Friday. Next up was No. 10 North Platte Community College which defeated Allen County 19-25, 25-20, 25-21, 25-22.
“We didn’t compete at all against Central then after regrouping and realizing what we went to the tournament to work on in the first place, the girls were able to take the first set against North Platte,” said Jessica Peters, ACCC head coach.
“We were competing at their level. A series of offensive mistakes on our part didn’t allow us to come up with a set win after that.”
On Saturday morning, the Red Devils took on Williston (ND) Community College and lost a five-set match, 26-24, 25-23, 21-25, 15-25, 15-11. The Red Devils faced sixth-ranked Iowa Lakes Community College and lost 25-9, 25-22, 25-19.
“Against Williston, we knew after two close sets with them we could beat them. We won the next two sets then were the first team to eight points in the fifth set. We just couldn’t close the deal,” Peters said.
“In the Iowa Lakes match, we did what we needed to do — the defense was on point, digging every thing in sight, putting balls to hitters who would run combinations and we served tough. Despite losing the match, we saw our freshmen forced to play at a higher, tougher intensity level.”
The two sophomores on the ACCC squad led the way. Rockhold pounded down 63 kills for the tournament and had one solo block and two assisted blocks at the net. Miller put up three solo blocks and had nine assisted blocks to her credit. She also had 32 kills.
Jenicke delivered 25 kills and had one assisted block and Makhala Giardina had 19 kills and made one solo block. Erika Mack had nine kills and one assisted block and Plagens downed three kills and had one assisted block.
Nicole Reed made two solo blocks and two assisted blocks along with one kill at the net. Shelby Greenwood and Casey Droddy each had two kills while Karlee Bobbitt and Morgan Scott had one kill each.
Mack was credited with 66 set assists for the weekend while Droddy had 53 assists. Bobbitt had 17 assists.
Defensively, Reed put up 57 digs and Rockhold had 50 digs. Jenicke had 36 digs followed by 30 from Mack, 22 from Scott, 15 by Droddy and 10 by Miller. Reed and Rockhold each had five service aces and Miller had three. Scott served two aces while Mack, Droddy and Bobbitt each had one ace.
ACCC volleyball team stumbles on the road
