Lady Saints Volleyball Falls to Cougars at Home

Liberal, KAN. – On Wednesday afternoon the Seward County Lady Saints volleyball team took the court inside of the Green House for their Pink Out game against the number one team in the KJCCC standings in the #19 Barton Cougars where SCCC was unable to gain any traction against the nationally ranked Cougars as Seward County was swept by Barton 3-0.

The Lady Saints fell to an early deficit in the first set as Barton took control with a 5-1 lead to start things off. Multiple errors by Seward County allowed the Cougars to grow their lead to 12-5 to make things difficult for SCCC and it looked to be all Barton in set one until Seward County was able to go on a 9-2 run that was capped by a kill from the left pin by Jasmyn Kistller to tie the set up at 14-14. The momentum did not last long for the Lady Saints as the Cougars quickly answered back with a run of their own to go up 21-17 before finally finishing off SCCC 25-20 in the first to go up 1-0 in the match.

Set two was a back-and-forth contest between both sides with Barton amounting another lead that was cut to one off a huge kill down the middle from Lajla Rasljanin to put the score at 6-5. The Cougars continued to grow their lead but the Lady Saints were never far behind as a block at the net from Rafaela Da Silva and Rasljanin cut it to 10-7 before Barton went on a 6-0 run to put the score at 18-9 to force SCCC into a timeout. The Lady Saints tried to rally together and go on another run of their own to catch the Cougars and a block from Keala Wilson and Marcelina Pyka helped Seward County get it started, but it was too late as Barton silenced the crowd with a 25-17 win in the second to improve to 2-0 on the match.

Barton once again took a big lead to start the third set with a 9-2 advantage over the Lady Saints, forcing them into a timeout only eleven points into the set. Trying to find any offensive rhythm they could, Wilson dropped in an ace to spark a 5-1 run for SCCC that was joined by an absolute hammer form Rasljanin and a block by Da Silva to cut the Cougar's lead to 16-12. Their run was short lived as once again Barton took full control and finished off the match with a 25-18 win in the third to complete the 3-0 sweep over the Lady Saints.

Seward County now falls to 12-13 on the 2023 season and a 4-8 record in conference action. The Lady Saints will now try to bounce back to a .500 record when they take on Dodge City on the road in a 6:30 PM matchup.