Allen Community College’s volleyball team offered up moments of court brilliance Monday, fighting tooth and nail against Johnson County Community College, which holds first place in the Jayhawk Conference Eastern Division.
But a pair of lulls was all Johnson County needed to take control in winning three of four sets, and the match.
The visiting Cavaliers won the first set in a 31-29 thriller, then rode that momentum to a 25-10 romp in Set 2.
Allen responded with its best volleyball of the night, racing to a 19-11 lead in the third set, then fending off a JCCC challenge to win, 25-22.
But the Cavaliers showed why they’re the nation’s fifth-ranked NJCAA Division II school, racing to a 9-1 lead and rolling from there to win the set and match, 25-16.
“They’re a good program,” Allen head coach Whitney Shaw said. “We knew we were gonna have to play well to get the ‘W.’”
With the defeat, Allen still has work to do in order to qualify for the postseason tournament, which takes the top eight Jayhawk East squads. Allen (9-9 overall and 7-9 in conference play) entered the night in ninth, one-half game behind Coffeyville.
“There were some great moments, where we had it all put together and stuck to the game plan,” Shaw said. “But there were moments where we got away from it and struggled. We made some errors we couldn’t afford to make. You can’t let those moments slip away from you because they will capitalize. I’m happy we got a set from them, but obviously we would have liked to have gotten all three.”
Adriana Santiago led the attack with 16 kills, while Laia Jaca led with 31 set assists. Macie Ediger followed with nine kills. Alexi Halenstine had three ace serves.
Defensively, Colleen Kilgore and Jaca both had 16 digs, followed by Ariana Compean and Halenstine with 12 apiece. Sadie Bakeberg had four blocks on the night.
The Red Devils embark on a busy stretch to wrap up the regular season. They’ll host Cloud County Thursday and Highland Saturday before traveling to Fort Scott next Monday and Neosho County on March 31.
