Cottey College Comets drop three weekend matches

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

The Cottey College Comets headed to the regional/district seeding tournament over the weekend and showed some inconsistent performances in losing all three matches.

In the first match of the tournament, the Comets were able to stay with the powerhouse that is East Central College through the majority of the match, allowing them to make the errors. As each of the two sets wore on, however, the powerful offensive attack that East Central brought to the table proved to be too much for the Comets to handle.

East Central used that attack to slowly increase the point spread late in both sets, eventually winning 25-17 and 25-15.

In the second match of the tournament, the Comets came out sloppy against Meramec, playing what head coach Marla Kannady Foreman called "monkey ball." The Comets came out in the first set and immediately became prone to error and that continued throughout the opener.

In the second set, the Comets began to self-destruct, allowing Meramec to go on a 6-0 run before scoring a point. After that, the Comets simply couldn't get any kind of offense going, allowing Meramec to take advantage for a dominant win in both sets, 25-13 and 25-8.

"We were completely out of sorts and timeouts and substitutions just didn't change anything," Foreman said.

The third and final match of the tournament was an entirely different story for the Comets as they came out and played well as a team, forcing a third set against Florissant Valley Community College.

"In between the second and third match, we sat down as a team and had a heart-to-heart talk about where we are now in the season and where we are planning to head in the future," Foreman said. "Being a member of a team that only has one victory can be very frustrating and then things can be said on the court that will not help the matter."

After that talk, the Comets came out much more willing to focus on the support of their teammates and went on to play well as a team. The Comets were forced to play most of the match without outside hitter Chrissy Echeverria as she went down with what trainers originally thought might be a broken foot early in the first set and were able to stay in it through most of the match.

The Comets made all three sets of the finale close -- even winning the second set -- but Florissant Valley was eventually able to come out on top 25-23, 25-20, 15-10.

"After that match, I talked to the players about match two and match three," Foreman said. " I told them I have three words to describe the comparison of match two and match three and that was 'night and day.' They knew what I meant from those three words."

Echeverria later had a battery of X-rays performed on her injured foot which determined that it was severely sprained, but not broken. She will likely miss this weekend's Family Weekend action, when the Comets take on Ozark Christian and Stephens College.

Freshman Kailey Kelly and sophomore Janelle Crowell shared the team lead with nine kills in the tournament for the Comets, while Kelly was all alone at the top with 40 assists. Crowell added a team-high four blocks while freshman Taylor Means posted a team-best four aces and freshman Emily Moore added 23 digs.

The Comets currently sit at 1-9 on the year and are scheduled to be in action again this Friday, Oct. 2, as they return home for a rematch against Ozark Christian College.

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