Oct. 24, 2005

Cidney Legg sat on the press table at Jackson Edwards Arena Thursday and marveled at the game her team just played. "We finally got to the highest level," Legg said. "We played the best we played so far. We really came together and there was never a time when we got down once." Indeed, the Northeastern Junior College volleyball team turned in one of its best efforts of the season at home Thursday against South Sub-region rival Otero, sweeping the match 30-18, 30-25, 30-23. The No. 17 Plainswomen dominated play all night and improved their record to 30-10 and 21-1 in their last 22 games. "This is as happy as Ive been after a win in quite some time," said coach Marci Henry, who has grown frustrated at times during the streak when her team went through the motions against inferior opponents. But Thursday the Plainswomen were facing one of their toughest opponents of the year and came out of it with a big collective smile on their faces. Sophomore right-side hitter Callie Vrooman made her mark with nine kills as a substitute for Ashley Kauffman, who was out with a back injury. "She was excited about getting the start," Henry said of the transfer from the University of Northern Colorado. "She was aggressive and played good defense and that is what we asked of her." Erin Holbrook had 14 service points and Janie Elkins had 14 digs and 12 kills while Shelby Heggie had 10 kills. Setter Stacy Manweiler added 41 assists while Lindsey Wilson had 11 digs. "Mentally I felt like we had good focus,"Holbrook said. "The whole time we were enjoying ourselves." The game marked the start of five straight home games to end Northeastern's regular season. Their major test will come Wednesday when they host No. 2 Western Nebraska, a team that beat them badly in Scottsbluff, Neb. last week. "We did many, many, many things well," Henry said.