No. 7 ranked Barton Community College clinched its 22nd national volleyball tournament appearance with a sweep of No 10 Colby 25-21, 26-24, 25-16 Sunday in the Region 6/Plains District Championship match.
The 24th Region 6 title improves Barton (31-2) to secure a Nov. 20-23 trip to Clarksville, Tenn. for the NJCAA Division I Volleyball Championship Tournament. Colby (26-4) waits for a possible at-large bid to be announced Wednesday.
Barton chalked up its 26th sweep of the year pleasing the boisterous home crowd behind a balanced effort of a .275 attack with 60 digs and 9 blocks.
Four Cougars had six or more recorded kills in the three sets, Phoebe Reyes' 11 leading the way on a .292 attack with Claflin's Kassidy Nixon posting a 10 kill, 11 dig performance for her team leading 13th double-double of the year.
Barton received 14 kills on a .520 efficient attack with 4.5 blocks from their middles, 8 kills and 5 blocks from Anna Wierzbicki along with the Cougars' lone pair of service aces with Aubrey Olander posting 6 kills (.545) and 4 blocks.
Naya Danenberg's 7th kill provided the match clincher and added a team leading 16 digs anchoring the backline along with Nixon's 11 andMina Kaneko's 14.
Mya Thompson rounded out the offensive numbers with 4 kills and provided 4 assisted blocks.
Elena Stankovic led the first wave of Barton's 6-2 offense with 21 assists as Maurin Reyes' 16 assists keyed the second wave with both players picking up 7 digs each. Kaneko also added to the assist total with 6 from the libero position.
Karlotta Kattai and Alexandra Workman led the Trojans with 10 kills each, Workman also leading the squad on a .833 efficiency on 12 swings while accounting for 4 of the team's 8 assisted blocks.
The Cougars were locked in Sunday from the beginning to race out to a 5-1 lead.
The Trojans crept back cutting the deficit in half before a pair of P. Reyes' kills helped ignite a Barton 6-1 stretch in grabbing a 15-8 advantage.
Following a Colby timeout, the Trojans responded in firing back a 7-1 streak to tie it up at 16-all. Trading points, Colby's trio of attacks seized its first lead in forcing Barton to call timeout at 20-18.
Just like the Trojans, Barton also responded out the timeout with Nixon and P. Reyes' kills sparking the squad as Colby committed three straight attack errors resulting in the Cougars back out front at 23-20. Nixon and P. Reyes then answered Colby's attack point with consecutive kills giving Barton the early match lead.
Colby held an 8-6 edge in the second frame before a pivotal five straight including consecutive kills from Wierzbicki, Nixon, and Thompson flipped the advantage to the home squad for the rest of the set.
Barton was able to keep Colby from tying it up until late, Danenberg's kill giving Barton set point, but like the two team's last meeting on October 16th, Colby fought it off with two straight in threatening to even the match.
A timeout by Head Coach Megan Besecker was exactly what the Cougars needed in saving the set and perhaps the match, responding with Wierzbicki and Nixon kills for the 2-0 match lead instead of the match becoming tied.
Colby's service error to open the third frame was a sign of what was coming as a pair of P. Reyes kills and three consecutive Trojan attack errors put Barton out front 6-1.
After trading a pair of points, the frame broke open powered by the Wierzbicki show as the sophomore put the next three tallies on the board via a center attack followed by consecutive service aces resulting in a 12-3 lead.Barton would build out a ten point advantage, only shrinking to a six point margin twice before closing out the match with the final four points including P. Reyes and Danenberg's final kills of the afternoon.
