For just coaching his team through a three-set loss, Dodge City Community College head volleyball coach Shaun Pohlman was fairly optimistic after Tuesday's match against the Pratt CC Beavers.
The Conqs fell 23-25, 18-25 and 24-26 at the DCCC gymnasium.
"That was actually pretty consistent Conquistadors volleyball," Pohlman said. "We just need to take certain areas of our game to the next level and if we can do that in this next week, we should be fine."
One of the aspects of the Conqs' (12-10, 2-2 in Jayhawk Conference play) game that Pohlman feels could lead them to better days toward the end of the season is their defense. Dodge players were flying all over the court Tuesday and getting to balls that in many matches would have gone for points.
"I give Dodge a lot of credit because I really value a good defensive team," said Pratt head coach Patrick Hall. "We played decent on defense, although I thought Dodge outplayed us defensively."
The Conqs hustled to dig out some impressive balls, but they were routinely outplayed on the outside. The Pratt block stuffed kill attempt after kill attempt from hitters Jamisha Johnson and Janelle Burnett.
"We had some pretty good reads and good timing," Hall said.
Pohlman said his players should have adjusted on the floor during the Dodge attack to counteract the Beaver block.
"The hardest thing is to get a young athlete determined to put the ball down — to get her to settle down and not try to kill it but to avoid a block, to go over a block or to go deep," Pohlman said of his hitters' tactics. "The bottom line is they stayed in system, had great sets and therefore had great hits."
Part of the Conqs' problem in finishing sets one and three and in starting slow in the second was that freshman setter Danika Lucyshyn was not 100 percent healthy. Pohlman said that Lucyshyn's spine was twisted, and she looked a step slower against Pratt as a result.
"I'm not saying it was her fault, but when you have a key element like a setter who has to scramble for sets at only 80% health, you can see the effects on the floor," Pohlman said. "We weren't able to make them scramble as much as we would have liked."
That statement rings especially true when a team only has nine members to begin with.
"And our setter was running around hurt more than we made their setter run around," Pohlman said.
Hall said a big part of the difference in the match was the play of Pratt hitter Tatiana Gonzales. Although Gonzales is usually more of a complementary hitter to Katerin Trejos, who was named NJCAA Region VI player of the week last week, Hall said that she had her best match of the year by far against Dodge.
After the match, Pohlman was ready to put the loss behind him and his team and focus on Colby CC, which will come to Dodge City for a match on Wednesday. The Conqs will be looking to turn around from two straight KJCCC losses in the home match, which is scheduled for 6:30 p.m.
DODGE CITY —
