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ICC advances to final four at national meet
Cougars, the seventh seed, play No. 3 Johnson County (Kan.) at 6:30 p.m. Friday
November 20, 2008
By Staff reports
Reprinted with permission of the Journal Star
The Cougars (23-8) defeated Iowa Lakes CC, 25-17, 25-22, 25-10 in their opening match and then needed a fifth set to beat No. 2 seed Cowley CC, 25-19, 20-25, 26-24, 23-25, 15-8. No. 7 seed ICC plays No. 3 seed Johnson County (Kan.) CC (29-3) at 6:30 p.m. today.
“We got focused and stayed aggressive on our blocking and serving and that was the difference in the second match,” ICC coach Sue Sinclair said.
Yiting Cao had 22 kills in the second match, but three others also had double-figure kills, including Katie Thomason (16), Melissa McCraken (16) and Natalie Boward (13). Terra Barra entered late in the match and had six kills with no errors on eight attempts.
“Teams know they can’t just concentrate on one or two players after they saw the depth of our kills today,” Sinclair said.
Cao led with 13 kills in the first match and Thomason had 10.
Cowley has been the team that has stopped ICC in its final game in two of the last three years.
Boward had a season-high nine blocks in the final match. She had six blocks in the first match.
“Boward was just on fire with her blocks,” Sinclair said. Chelsey Rankin led with 22 digs in the second match and Thomason had 18 and Cao 16. Monica Roof had a season-high 54 assists in the second match.
After trailing 5-0 in the third set, ICC tied it at 24-all and scored the last two points. Cao had three aces in that set.
ICC led 18-14 in the fourth set but Cowley tied it at 23-all and scored the next two points, the last on an ace. ICC controlled the fifth set.
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