CHEYENNE, WY – Cinderella's slipper still fits the Laramie County Community College volleyball team as they advanced to the Region IX Championship match on Thursday night by taking down Western Wyoming Community College 3-2 (22-25, 25-21, 17-25, 25-23, 15-13) to make it to their first championship game since winning the Region IX North title in 2017.
The match started out rough for LCCC when the Mustangs reeled off a 6-1 run to kick things off, forcing a Zach Shaver timeout. LCCC responded well though and cut the deficit to just one with a 4-0 run of their own.
From there the set was back and forth, with neither team able to put together more than three points in a row all the way to the end when Western Wyoming closed the set with a run to break a 22 all tie and win the set 25-22.
The second set flipped the script when LCCC was the team to surge out to the early lead getting the edge at 6-2. They were able to get the lead up to five at 8-3 and from there the set leveled out. The two sides traded points on 13 of the next 14 serves. It was another 3-0 run to close out the set but this time it was the Golden Eagles who finished it off the take the set 25-21.
Western Wyoming came out on a mission in the third set when they paired two runs to take a 9-2 lead and didn't look back. While LCCC did close the gap to six a few times, they never could make any headway and fell down 2-1 with a 25-17 loss.
It was crunch time in the fourth set and it was again an up-hill battle for the Golden Eagles after an 8-2 run by WWCC to start the set. Addison Schreurs led a five-point charge from LCCC though and down 9-7 they made a match of it, taking their first lead on another long run to take their first lead at 14-12 on a 6-0 burst.
The Mustangs didn't have the answer this time and LCCC was able to keep them at arm's length to take the set 25-23 and force it to a fifth.
LCCC again took the first break in the fifth set and pushed in front 7-3 through ten serves. Both teams traded 3-0 runs and the Mustangs won 4 of the next six to bring themselves within two, and even to within one at 13-12 and 14-13, but the Golden Eagles came up with clutch points, and a few critical service errors from Western Wyoming aided the LCCC win as they closed out their second straight five-set win in comeback fashion with a 15-13 win.
Schreurs had a big game for the Golden Eagles with 49 assists along with a pair of aces and 13 digs for a double-double.
The Golden Eagle offense was led by Lea Susoy who finished with 18 kills along with 16 digs. McKienna Kehl added a career high 13 kills and had no hitting errors to finish with a .448 hitting percentage.
They were joined by a 12-kill, 17-dig performance from Adriana Deming and 11 kills from Elysiana Fonseca. Maria Rawlek was just shy of double figures with nine and hit .421 for the second-best percentage on the team.
Defensively, the back row accounted for 87 digs for the Golden Eagles in the match including another 21 from Savannah Cummings. Five LCCC players finished with more than 10 digs, capped off by Salaana Akanoa picking up her first double-digit dig game of her career.
The win moves the Golden Eagles into the Region IX Championship match where they will face off with Eastern Wyoming College who finished off a sweep of Central Wyoming College in the nightcap. The opening serve of the match is scheduled for 5:00 pm.
Preceding that match will be the Northeastern Junior College Plainswomen taking on Central Wyoming at Noon before Western Nebraska faces Western Wyoming at 2:30 pm. Both of those matches are elimination matches.
More information on both the LCCC volleyball team and the Region IX Volleyball Tournament can be found at www.golccc.com.