Bearcats take second place in Ada volleyball tournament

By Editor | September 20, 2024 |

By Coach Tina Turn
The Bearcats volleyball team attend three Saturday tournaments every season. For the first of the season, we go to Ada to play in a 16-team tournament with a lot of quality teams and four AA teams.
This early September tournament, which took place on Saturday, Sept. 7 this year, is always a good indication of where we are sitting, what our strengths as a team are and what we need to work on. The Bearcats had a very good showing this year, winning all three pool-play games thus heading into the top division of the tournament for a two-match playoff.
KCC vs. Fosston
In the opening pool-play match, we met up with the Fosston Greyhounds. We last met up with the Greyhounds in the quarterfinal playoff match where the Bearcats won. The Greyhounds were looking to avenge that loss, but KCC held them off with a 25-18, 25-21 win. While we struggled to serve well in the match (86% and 6 aces), we passed well on serve receive. We also blocked well, recording the most blocks in a match all day at 5. Kaydence White led the offense with 7 kills while Morgan Turn followed with 6 and Lauryn Whitlock with 5.
KCC vs. DGF
Match two was a battle with Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton. We met up with the Rebels in a summer tournament and found out that we were very evenly matched. We won a 3-set victory that June day just like we won a 3-set victory against the Rebels in Ada.
KCC played well in set one (25-22) but they dropped off the map in set two (16-25) with poor passing and a lot of unforced errors. The Bearcats eked out a 15-13 win in the deciding set. Four blocks helped at the net, but we struggled to stop their big middle. Even though a .24 hitting efficiency is above our goal, it was barely enough to get the job done. Our 93% serving rate for the match helped, but DGF passed well and we only scored on two aces.
KCC vs. RLF
In our third and final pool-play match, we met up with the Eagles of Red Lake Falls. They had really improved since saw them at a pre-season scrimmage, and they gave us a run for our money in set one, which we won 25-22, but it was a come-from-behind win. The Bearcats passed poorly on serve receive and thus struggled to get our offense going. Fortunately, that was not a problem in set two as we went on to win 25-13 and played a much more error-free game. White did the most offensive damage with 12 kills, followed by Turn with 7. Serving was not great at only 84%, but the Bearcats scored on 5 aces to help the serving cause.
Having won our pool, we found ourselves seeded No. 1 heading into the top division of the tournament along with Class A Ada/Borup-West, Class AA East Grand Forks, and Class AA Thief River Falls. We matched up with ABW in the opening round of the playoff, and it was a pretty intense 3-set battle between two teams with some lethal offense.
ABW showcases two players who are setter/OH combo players, both of whom are 6 feet-plus juniors already recruited to NDSU.
KCC vs. ABW
In set one, KCC won the battle 25-16, but after some struggles on serve receive in set two, we lost 23-25, which forced a deciding set that went in favor of the Bearcats 15-9.
KCC’s hitting efficiency was .49, which is outstanding. Unfortunately, we only recorded 2 blocks, which made our back row defense have to work extra hard. They came up with 19 digs, and fortunately we converted on a lot of those plays. The Cougar serve receive was found to be a weakness, and KCC exploited it earning 12 points off aces in the win and serving 92% overall. This win sent the Bearcats to the championship match.
KCC vs. EGF
After waiting for two other matches to end, KCC took to the floor in the championship match against the Class AA East Grand Forks Greenwave, a team we swept at home two days prior. EGF was looking to avenge that sweep and they came out firing on all cylinders.
KCC had their best serving percentage of the day at 94% and even scored against a solid passing Greenwave team with 6 aces. KCC recorded an amazing 50 digs in the 3-set battle and recorded 29 kills, for a .20 hitting efficiency, which was the lowest of the day for the Bearcats.
What the game came down to was defense. The Greenwave had a much better blocking game than the Bearcats did, and defensively, they covered the floor and nothing dropped. There were several long rallies where we dug up a few balls, and had a few great swings, but they almost all ended in favor of EGF, who was just relentless. Kudos to them for displaying some top-notch defense. The scores of the match were 16-25, 25-17, 10-15.
We were really hoping to take the championship and remain undefeated, but it wasn’t in the cards. It was a valuable day of play for us, and we learned a few things that will help us as we move forward. We still need to work on blocking and coverage, and consistency in our serving game. We have been trying to run a faster-tempo offense, and we didn’t sustain that effort the way we’d like, so we’ll be sure to focus on that in upcoming matches. Overall, though, we met several of our goals and are pleased with how we battled in some tough early-season matches.
KCC stands with a 7-1 record and looks ahead to hosting Warren-Alvarado-Oslo and Warroad this week.