BCC volleyball players earn honors
Olivia Naccarato of the Barton Community College volleyball team was named Tuesday as the KJCCC Division I Player of the Week. The selection marks the second straight week a Cougar was awarded as Nathalia Gouveia was named the Defensive Player of the Week in week two.
Naccarato played a key role from her middle hitter position controlling the center of the floor this past week hitting at a .333 with three of the four matches hitting well over .300. Beginning the week with a .417 attack and four service aces in a three-set sweep of Butler Community College, the Mulvane, Kansas, native lit up Lamar Community College on Friday with fifteen kills on a .448 attack while also nearly recording a double-double with nine blocks. Naccarato concluded her week with seventeen kills for a .371 efficiency while putting up seven blocks and two aces helping the Cougars in the comeback win to finish the week 5-0 improving to 13-3 on the season.
The Cougars are 2-2 in Jayhawk conference play and 13-4 on the season heading into Wednesday’s 6:30 p.m. match at Pratt Community College. Barton will conclude its eight match, ten day stretch on Saturday hosting No. 20 Hutchinson Community College in a 2 p.m. first serve.
BY MIKE MARZOLF
Special to the Tribune
Home has been pretty good to the Barton volleyball team this year. Going into Monday’s Jayhawk match up with Colby the Cougars were unbeaten. Early on it looked as if Barton would stay that way.
But in the end, the Cougars dropped their first home match of the season, falling in conference play to Colby. The Trojans left the Barton Gym with a 20-25, 25-23, 25-17, 25-18 win.
The loss dropped Barton to 2-2 in the conference and 13-4 overall. Colby remains in second place in the Jayhawk at 4-1 and 11-1 overall.
Barton was in control of the match early, winning the first set 25-20 and leading into the second set. But a key run by Colby turned the tide on the night and the Cougars never really recovered.
“The league is tough,” Coach Brandon Stephenson said. “You have to be ready to play every night and every point that night.”
Barton led most of the first set and following a 4-0 run had a 20-15 advantage. The Cougars kept that lead in the 25-20 win. In that first set Barton had 16 kills to just three errors as they hit a blistering .591.
Barton appeared on the way to a two-set lead in the match in the following set. The Cougars went on a 7-2 run to take a 16-12 lead and extended it to 21-15 late in the set. At that Barton was again hitting the ball well with 14 kills.
That is when the tide turned.
Colby closed out the second set on a 10-2 run for the 25-23 win and Barton never recovered.
Barton hung around in the third set but Colby again closed strong, finishing off Barton with a 9-2 run to win the third set 25-17.
In the final set of the night the Trojans again took an early lead but Barton gave one more good effort to trim to the margin to 15-14. From there the Trojans would finish on a 10-4 run to win the Jayhawk battle.
“We stress to our team to focus every point,” Coach Stephenson said. “We want to be able to do that to keep teams from stringing together several points in a row. We weren’t able to do that against a very good Colby team.
“We are getting there. We obviously still have a ways to go. But we are getting there.”
Nathalia Gouveia led the Cougars with 13 kills and Olivia Naccarato added 10. Naccarato also led the Cougars with seven aces while Carolina Goncalves finished with 38 assists. Gouveia recorded 13 digs to lead the Cougars as well.
Barton will continue its busy week with a trip to Pratt Wednesday then at home again on Saturday against league-leading Hutchinson at 2 pm.
