Lady Tiger volleyball advances to District A title game

The No. 1-ranked and unbeaten Cowley College volleyball team moved within one win of its first national tournament appearance in four years with a dominating 25-7, 25-16, 25-12 win over eighth-seeded Coffeyville Monday in the District A Tournament played inside W.S. Scott Auditorium.

Cowley (37-0) advances to face Kansas City (22-10) Saturday at 3:30 p.m. at Friends University in Wichita, KS. Tickets for games played at Friends University will be sold online at www.KJCCC.org/Tickets tickets will not be sold at the gate.

The winner of Saturday's championship match will qualify to compete at the NJCAA Division II National Championships held November 18-20 in Cedar Rapids, IA.

Coffeyville ends the season with a record of 18-21.

Cowley head coach Steven Gream was pleased with his team's performance.

"We did a good job of playing our game and didn't let the thought of it being postseason affect us," Gream said.

The Tigers came out firing on Wednesday as they got three aces from standout Iva Halacheva during a 10-1 run to start the opening set. Cowley's lead would grow to 16-3 as they cruised to the 25-7 win of set one.

Freshman setter Rossana Papa served Cowley to a 3-0 lead in set two and Cowley would continue to pile it on, leading 6-1, and 15-4 following another ace by Rachele Tessari. The Lady Tigers would go on to the 25-16 win.

"Our serve put a lot of pressure on them," Gream said.

After falling behind 2-0 in set three, Cowley rattled off six straight points and went on to force Coffeyville to call timeout with the Lady Tigers' leading 10-4. The momentary stop in play did nothing to slow Cowley's momentum as they would score six of the next seven points and breezed to the 25-12 win.

Cowley had five players record six or more kills and hit .481 on the match, while holding Coffeyville to a woeful .014 hitting percentage. Halacheva led Cowley with 13 kills, while Rachele Tessari added eight kills, five digs and three aces.

Kansas City gave Cowley a battle in the team's matchup September 15 in Arkansas City with the Lady Tigers winning 25-23, 25-12, 26-24.

"Kansas City will pressure us with their offense," Gream said. "One of our goals was to win district and we need to keep our focus on that and just continue to take it one game at a time."