The New Mexico Military Institute Bronco volleyball team moved one step closer to an automatic invite to this year's NJCAA National Championships with a a four-set win against New Mexico Junior College.
The Broncos overcame a somewhat slow start against the Thunderbirds in this semifinal match of the Region V Postseason Championships, dropping the first set, but quickly rebounded to sweep the next three sets: 23-25, 25-18, 25-20, 25-15.
"I feel like offensively, we did really good things," said NMMI head coach Shelby Forchtner. "We hit well over .300 and only had 11 total attack errors for the entire match - that's something we have not been able to consistantly do."
Three Institute players combined for the kill lead with Michelle Mlikan, Selin Guler, and Sarah Schubert each knocking down 11 attacks. Allison Miller was just one kill behind with 10, while Daicy Benites Franco and Yuliana Favela posted nine and seven kills, respectively, each while hitting above 50%.
"Our M.O. the entire season has been our aggressive serving, defense and just passing better than other teams; those three things have gotten us to where we are," continued Forchtner. "But today, those are the things we struggled with the most. We finally made the defensive adjustment, but they were beating us in the serve and serve-receive game. We've got to be able to clean that up before we play this next game. With the offense starting to play like this, we just need all the other cylinders firing as well."
With the win, the nationally-ranked No. 3 Broncos move to 30-2 on the season. They'll have to face either fifth-ranked Weatherford College or ninth-ranked Odessa College tomorrow in the Region V title tilt, with the first serve scheduled for 1:00 pm Saturday, Nov. 9, in the Cahoon Armory gym.
The winner of that 1 pm match will earn an automatic bid to the 2024 NJCAA Women's D1 Volleyball National Championships, held this year in Clarksville, TN beginning on Nov. 20. The loser will still have a shot at another automatic bid, but will have to play the winners of the runner's-up bracket to determine the Region V Championship's second-place squad. That match is slated for a 4:30 pm start on Saturday and will also be played in Cahoon.