Lady Saints Drop Heartbreaker in Colby

Unfortunately for the Seward County Lady Saints, the story in the past few years in Colby has been the same over and over and over.  It was another hard fought match Wednesday night in the Community Building in Colby, but for the fifth straight year, the Lady Saints came up on the short end of the stick, losing a tough five setter to the Lady Trojans to drop their first Jayhawk West match of the 2014 season. 

The play wasn't extremely sharp early on between the two Jayhawk West powers as Seward and Colby were tied at 6 to get things going.  The Lady Saints broke through to take a 10-7 lead after three straight Colby errors, but the Trojans came back to knot things at 13 midway through the set.  Seward made another push behind outside hitter Thayna Silva to take an 18-13 lead and it was enough to push them over the top as they cashed in on their second set point opportunity later on to take the first set 25-23. 

The second set didn't start well for the Lady Saints as four early errors put Seward in a 9-2 hole.  After a timeout the Lady Saints got things back going in the right direction and a 9-3 run for Seward drew the gals in green back to within one at the midway point with the score 12-11.  Then as if on a roller coaster, it was Colby's turn to push the tempo.  The Lady Trojans scored the next five points and before the Lady Saints could catch their breath, they were back in a six point hole.  The run ended up being the straw that broke the camel's back as Seward outscored Colby down the stretch, but the six point deficit was too much to overcome as the Lady Trojans evened the match at one all with a 25-19 win. 

Seward provided all the scoring at the start of the third, getting four kills and an ace to score their five points, but also provided the Lady Trojans with four freebies on errors to tie things at 5 early on.  Colby jumped in front from there and the Lady Saints played catch-up until getting an ace from Alex Wood and a pair of kills from Silva to tie the score and go in front 14-13.  Colby tied things back up at 17 when Seward went to Megan Sharratt in the middle for two straight kills to take the lead back 19-17.  A quick 3-0 run from Colby put them back on top and the teams went back and forth to a 23-23 tie with the set on the line.  Seward had a chance to go take the lead and give themselves set point, but a hitting error did the reverse in favor of Colby and the Lady Trojans put the set away on their first chance to win 25-23 and take a 2-1 lead in the match. 

The Lady Saints came out swinging in the fourth with their backs to the wall and behind a pair of kills from Wood and two more from Carolina Freitas and Kristen Anderson, the gals in green had a 6-0 lead in the set.  But just as soon as they got comfortable, they committed four straight errors to allow Colby back in and before they knew it, the lead was gone and the Lady Trojans actually held a two point advantage at 11-9.  The middle of the set was again a nip and tuck battle with both teams taking turns at grabbing the lead until they once again found themselves deadlocked at 19.  Colby scored two to take a 21-19 lead and the Lady Saints followed suit to make it 21-21.  A pair of Colby attack errors gave Seward a 23-21 lead, but just like that the Trojans tied it back up at 23.  Seward then went to Silva on the outside who banged home a kill to give the Lady Saints a 24-23 lead and set point and they finished Colby off with a kill from Nacole Miller to win the set 25-23 and send the match to a deciding fifth set. 

The Lady Saints would certainly liked to have replicated their hot start from the fourth set in the fifth, but that isn't the way things would happen on this night.  Colby bolted out to a 5-1 lead and led 8-2 at the changeover after another Seward hitting error.  The Lady Saints found themselves down double digits in the set at 13-3 after three straight hitting errors and never fought back, falling 15-5 in the fifth to lose the match 3-2. 

While there were some good numbers that popped off the page in the loss for Seward, most of the focus was on the glaring negative numbers.  Seward again shot themselves in the foot with 51 errors in the match, making it 92 in their past two matches, both losses to Paris and Colby.  The Lady Saints had a season high 25 hitting errors in the defeat and were also called for a season high 14 ball handling errors to go along with 9 service errors.  Silva led the Lady Saints with 20 kills while Gasparini was the only other Seward player in double figures with 10.  Taryn Bedore had a team high 23 assists in front of almost a home crowd in Colby while Miller added 18 for Seward.  Kari Anderson tied her career high with 32 digs while Silva had 24 and Bedore had 18.  The Lady Saints had a season low 2 blocks as a team in the loss compared to 11 for the Lady Trojans. 

Seward drops their fourth contest in five matches and falls to 6-4 overall on the season and 1-1 in Jayhawk West action.  Colby improves to 4-4 on the year and 1-1 in league play. 

Next up for the Lady Saints is a trip up the road to Garden City Saturday where they will take on the Lady Broncbusters in a 2:00 matinee match followed by a non-conference contest with Frank Phillips in the Perryman Center in Garden. 

SEWARD COUNTY/COLBY BOX SCORE