Lady Tiger volleyball team bounces back with pair of home wins

Returning home after a disappointing loss at Fort Scott to open the season, the No. 3-ranked Cowley College volleyball team earned a pair of wins over Allen Community College and Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College Thursday inside W.S. Scott Auditorium.

The Lady Tigers (2-1 overall, 1-1 Jayhawk East) knocked off a pesky Allen squad in straight sets, 25-23, 25-17, 25-19, before rallying to defeat NEO 20-25, 25-23, 25-17, 25-23 in four sets.

In the match against Allen, Cowley rallied from an early 11-8 deficit in set one to win 25-23. Then, the Lady Tigers never trailed in set two, winning 25-17. In the third and final set, Cowley fought back from a 4-0 deficit to grab its first lead at 10-9. The Lady Tigers' lead would grow to 14-9 and they never looked back in the 25-19 win.

"We gave Allen too many points due to our unforced errors in that first game," Cowley head coach Steven Gream said. "We started to clean our game up after that which kind of allowed us to cruise to winning the next two sets."

Sophomore Iva Halacheva led Cowley with 17 kills in the win over Allen and passed the 500 kill mark for her Lady Tiger career.

"Iva was the driving force for us in the two wins," Gream said.

Freshmen Macy Shreffler and Maddy Pitts also played well as they finished with 11 and eight kills, respectively. Fellow freshmen Gracie Story (34 assists) and Erin Thompson (10 digs) led Cowley in assists and digs.

Against NEO, the first set featured 10 ties before the Golden Norse pulled away for the 25-20 win.

Cowley would then trail for the majority of the second set before scoring six of the final seven points to win 25-23. Cowley would use a 13-3 run in set three to again come from behind to win 25-17.

Set four would be much of the same as the Lady Tigers found themselves trailing 22-19 before again scoring six of the final seven points to win 25-23.

"We got stuck in a rotation that allowed them to make a run each set, but we were able to right the ship and limit our errors which allowed us to win," Gream said.

Halacheva had a match-high 24 kills, while Shreffler added 13 kills.

Cowley will now prepare to play at Cloud County Monday at 6:30 p.m. The Lady T-Birds are 1-1 in the Jayhawk East following a five-set win at Labette on Thursday.

"Cloud is well coached and will be ready to play us," Gream said. "We hope to carry the momentum of these wins into Monday's match."