Kannady-Foreman pleased with Comets play in recent win

Cottey Comets head volleyball coach Marla Kannady-Foreman was delighted with her team's play during an Oct. 26 home victory over Labette Community College (Kan.)

The Comets defeated Labette in a five-set thriller, 25-21, 25-17, (25-22), (25-14), 15-13.

Cottey Comets freshman Anjolene Bozeman sets a pass for fellow freshman Melanie Dillon (5) during the Comets Thursday-night match against Labette Community College. Pictured to the left of Bozeman, Cottey sophomore Katherine Brockus. (Matthew Resnick/Daily Mail)

"For the past three matches (against Wentworth, Baptist Bible College, and Labette) we have come to compete," Kannady-Foreman said. "That is nice to finally see from my players. We are late in the season, but better late than never! If we get down a few points, we don't turn around and fall apart. We stay focused and work our way back into most sets."

Comets sophomore Morgan Taylor came up with a big performance, recording 33 digs, 18 kills, and three aces. Sophomore Madelyn Underwood led all hitters at 35 percent, while freshman Anjolene Bozeman dished out 21 assists.

"I am still trying to instill in my players to feed the hitters with the highest hitting percentages first, then go to someone else," Kannady-Foreman said. "Sometimes, we get into setting our good friend who has a 6 percent hitting average, and overlook the 22 percent hitting average player.

"I have three players who are at 16 percent or above. "I called a timeout late in set four to ask them if they wanted to set the 5 percent and 6 percent hitters and lose this match, or set the three hitters who are above 16 percent.

"They went back in for the short period they had left and set the ones who were making the kills. That set the tone for them to realize what they had to do in set five, and they went out and did it, resulting in a win."

According to Kannady-Foreman, her squad made strides in a number of areas against Labette, including registering 55 kills to only 16 hitting errors.

"Usually we have a set or two in which our team hitting percentage is zero or in the negative," she said. "We kept all five games in the positive for hitting percentage."

Kannady-Foreman also discussed the Comets point distribution.

"Six different players ended up with assists," she said. "Which doesn't necessarily mean we had good passing during that time, but it speaks volumes about players stepping into a secondary role to set the bad pass up. And it results in a kill for the team."

Meanwhile, Kannady-Foreman said six different players notched at least one ace. Additionally, during the five-set match, Cottey was able to limit its missed serves to six.

"Which is much improved from about mid- season where we were struggling with missed serves a lot," she said.

Kannady-Foreman however, said her team needs to improve at putting away the opponent.

"When you have a team down two sets, you need to finish the match," she said. "We allowed too many distractions to come in and steal sets three and four, but when the fifth set came around, we stayed determined to do the job."

Other miscues allowed Labette to claw back from two sets down.

"Too many serve- receive errors and ball handling errors," she said. "Seven players had at least one or more serve-receive errors, and six players had ball handling errors. This is too much for our level of play, while being this late in the season.

Kannady-Foreman said her team exhibited a competitive fire against Labette.

"There were some really long rallies between Labette and us," she said. "And it really fired us up whenever we would win the battle. "If my memory serves me right, I believe we won 75 percent of the long rallies, if not more."

Up next

The Comets close out their regular season with a home match against Allen County Community College (Kan.) Nov. 3 at 6:30 p.m.