Oct. 5, 2007

By Anthony Arroyo Journal-Advocate sports reporter

The Northeastern Junior College volleyball team didn't have the best performance you'd see them have, but they got the job done against Otero Junior College (OJC) Thursday night.

The ranked No. 17 Plainswomen was victorious in four games, 30-21, 25-30, 30-21, 30-21 to improve their overall record to 29-9 this season. But give the Lady Ratters some credit, they appear to be a much improved team from a year ago. In contrast to a season ago, NJC beat their region foe 30-17, 30-17, 30-10 at the Bank of Colorado Event Center.

"They have a good setter and they definitely have some good hitters on their team," Northeastern head volleyball coach Marci Henry said, speaking of her opponent Thursday. "We have played teams that have an offense as fast as Otero's but we didn't do a good job defending it."

Northeastern began the first game of the night on a good note, extending their opening lead to five points early on before OJC battled back to tie matters at 12 apiece. NJC was actually down by one on two different occasions before coach Henry called a time out. The game would presume to be tied at 17 and that is when the Plainswomen went off. The women finished game one on a 13-4 run to close with a game one victory. Game two was another story.

After NJC recorded the first point of the match, OJC took a 3-2 lead and never looked back. Slowly, the Lady Rattlers would pushed for a four point lead and increase it to as high as seven points before the road team tied the match with the five point win. Some adjustments had to be made.

"We didn't do much of anything right in the second game, but mainly all night," Henry said. "We were slow in transition, we didn't get to our positions on the block. It just felt like all the wheels fell off the cart."

Northeastern came back in the third game and opened up a fast 7-1 lead forcing their opponent to call a time out. Otero would cut into the deficit to make the score 15-13, but the Plainswomen used a small four run spark to shoot the lead to six and the girls never looked back. The game would conclude with a monster kill by sophomore Thais Hollerbach, one of 14 kills she had Thursday evening.

In the final game of the match, sophomore Tamy Leipelt took the serve with her team down 6-4 before rallying her team to six straight points to make it a 10-6 game. An ace by Leipelt later in the game made the score 20-14, on their way to a nine point victory to send the Lady Rattlers home in defeat.

"We had determined early on that they were leaving us a big holes in the middle of the floor and although we didn't go after it in game two, but in the following two games, we did a much better job getting the ball there."

Leipelt had 19 kills on the evening, sharing top honors with fellow sophomore Addi Radke, who also chipped in with 19. Defensively, Brittany Larson had the most blocks up front with four. Hollerbach led the Plainswomen with 15 digs, followed by Radke with nine of her own. Freshman Suyan Leipelt had four service aces to lead all servers for her team. Her sister Tamy had three on the night. Sophomore Jessica Tjaden had 34 assists.

NJC began a three-match set in as many days that will take place at the Jackson & Edwards Arena. The Plainswomen will host Trinidad Junior College Friday night at 7 p.m., followed by a Saturday afternoon game with Lamar Community College at 2 p.m.