Sept. 20, 2006

By Anthony Arroyo Journal-Advocate sports reporter

STERLING - It's a scary thought to see the potential that the Plainswomen could have when they are clicking on all cylinders.

If they weren't last night, it was darn close as they had no problem putting the Lamar Community College Lopes away in straight sets 30-11, 30-11, 30-12.

Northeastern, despite starting off slow in the first two games, is now 14-3 on the season and have yet to lose a game at home this season.

"We started off a little slow, but we picked things up really quickly and I was real pleased with that," Head coach Marci Henry said after the game. "Something that I have been concerned about lately was our ball control and our serve-receive and I think they were both very good (Tuesday)."

In the first game of three, the game was most remembered with the performance that freshman Thais Hollerbach had. The team was already up 25-11 when Hollerbach used her unstoppable top spin jump serve and recorded five straight aces to put the game in the bag. Thais added one more in the third game, finishing with a game-high six aces on the evening.

The performance was an example that was continued in games two and three with NJC recording 13 aces as an ending result.

"Like coach said we came out really slow starting off," freshman libero Jenny Andresen said. "We like to have a really fast tempo to the game since we feel that it makes us play better as a team overall and with coach letting us play it out against a team like Lamar, we came through."

Andresen led the team in digs with 16 on the night to go along with four aces. The freshman duo from Porto Alegre, Brazil -- Tamy Leipelt and Hollerbach -- added seven and six digs respectably. Thais also led the team in kills with a game-high 18. She was followed by Leipelt with seven kills and the freshman-sophomore combo of Addi Radke and Ashley Kauffman each contributed with six. Up front, freshman Kendra Buckmaster, a product of Longmont, had eight stuff blocks to lead all blockers. Radke blocked three of her own in the win as well.

"Once we got into the game the further we went, it was total domination," sophomore Stacy Manweiler said, who had 17 assist only trailing freshman Brittany Palmer who had 18. "We executed well, we passed well, we hit and blocked well. We just went in there and did what we know how to do."

Although Northeastern will move up somewhere in the top ten when rankings come out later today, both the coaching staff and the players know they is still work that needs to be done to get to that all mighty number one.

"We need to be able to stay consistent and convert every time we get a free ball and convert it to a kill, as well as prevent team to make runs on us," Henry said. "We need to try to keep the other team to three serves at the most."

The Plainswomen will be traveling a lot within the next two weeks beginning tomorrow, where they will travel to Scottsbluff, NE., to participate in a three day tournament that kicks off with Western Wyoming Community College at noon. The following weekend, the team will head to Midland, TX., for another tournament before coming back home Oct. 1 against Trinidad State Junior College.

Anthony Arroyo can be reached at 522-1990, Ext. 232 or by e-mail: aarroyo@journal-advocate.com