Barton Community College volleyball team found itself in early deficits that it could not dig itself out of Wednesday night against visiting Dodge City.
Dodge City swept Barton 25-23, 25-22 and 25-22 in the Lady Cougars’ first conference match of the season. The loss gives Barton a 3-2 on the young season.
In the first game of the best-of-five match, the Lady Cougars trailed immediately, but never trailed by more than four points at any time.
“One of our biggest problems was that we could not keep the serve,” Lady Cougars head coach Jaime Cabral said. “We would earn a serve back and as soon as we served, Dodge was able to work out of their serve-receive rotation and get a kill to win it right back.”
The Lady Cougars fought back to tie the game at 20 and at 22-all, but lost, 25-23.
The second game began just like the first. The Lady Cougars found themselves three points behind. Also, like the first game, they battled back to tie the game, this time at 14.
After trading serves back and forth, the Lady Cougars took the lead briefly at 17-16 only to lose the lead and the game, as Dodge City won 25-22.
The Lady Cougars got out to an early lead in the third game, but Dodge City quickly took the lead back and completed the sweep.
“We got outhustled tonight,” Cabral said. “Our defense was non-existent. Our blockers were not able to figure out their one big hitter. We need to figure her out a little earlier than their 23rd point in game 3.”