WICHITA — The Barton Community College volleyball team will be making its second straight trip to the NJCAA tournament after winning the Region VI tournament on Sunday.
The Lady Cougars kept it interesting, losing in the first championship match against Seward County, 26-24, 15-25, 12-25, 25-23, 15-12. They stayed alive, thanks to the double-elimination format.
Barton beat Seward County, 25-23, 20-25, 25-17, 25-22, in the second match to advance to the national tournament, which will be held Nov. 17-19 at Missouri State University-West Plains.
The Lady Cougars began the weekend’s region tournament by sweeping both Hutchinson and Seward County on Saturday to advance to the championship round.
“We played some of our best ball that we’ve played all year on Saturday,” Barton head coach Patrick Hall said. “Both matches, everything just went smoothly. We had great set distribution. We had three players with nine or more kills against Hutch.”
Then Barton began to fall flat on Sunday.
“Unfortunately, it was another day,” Hall said. “I don’t know if things were too easy on Saturday, or if things were just going to smoothly for us. If you look at the scores, it doesn’t look as bad.”
Hall said that after the first set, a 26-24 Seward County win, his team began to compete well again, earning 25-15 and 25-12 victories to lead the match 2-1.
“It looked like it was all right,” Hall said. “We looked like we were cruising. We relaxed a little too much and lost that set 4.”
Hall said that the Lady Cougars had four hitting errors in the final five points of the fourth game, and that the errors continued into the fifth game, resulting in Seward County winning the first match.
However, Barton settled down and was able to win the second match in four games.
“We went into that last match and had to fight to get through it,” Hall said. “Saturday was pretty easy, and Sunday was a struggle.”
The pairings for the national tournament have yet to be determined because one more match that has to be played.
“I think we’ll probably know the seeding on Wednesday,” Hall said. “I’m just guessing, but I don’t think we’ll be seeded much higher than 14 out of 16. Just looking at the teams that will be in the tournament and the rankings right now.”
The Lady Cougars are led by freshman Paula da Silva, who has 447 kills for a 38.0 hitting percentage. She leads with 103 blocks and 40 aces.
Giselle de Moura leads with 554 digs this season for an average of 4.66 digs per set.