Westmont College Athletics

By Ron Smith
November 30, 2017
 
(SIOUX CITY, IOWA) Westmont Volleyball (35-3) emerged from pool play at the NAIA National Championship undefeated with a three-game sweep (25-12, 25-16, 31-29) of #11 Midland of Nebraska (21-10). The sixth-ranked Warriors will advance to the single-elimination, 16-team championship bracket as the top seed out of Pool F and will take on the yet to be determined second place team out of Pool E.
 
First serve is scheduled for 3:45 p.m. CST tomorrow with the winner advancing to the quarterfinals tomorrow evening at 8:15.
 
Libby Dahlberg and Taylor Beckman produced 12 and 11 kills respectively to help lead the Warrior offense. Dahlberg posted a .500 attacker percentage while Beckman contributed 16 digs and 11 serve receptions.
 
"I am so stoked that we finished pool play undefeated," said head coach Patti Cook. "I am absolutely thrilled about that, especially since we haven't done it in such a long time. We know what if feels like to lose in pool play and come into bracket play with a loss. Coming out without a loss gives us a lot of confidence moving forward."
 
"Our word for the tournament has been 'fearless'," said senior middle blocker Emma Harrah. "As each game has happened we have played more fearlessly. I think we are definitely in the flow of things. I think it helped having a 17-day break (between the end of the regular season and the start of postseason play) because every practice we showed up and played six-on-six and practiced things we needed to work on. That helped us play and execute our plans."
 
"We were mentally prepared by our coaches even before coming to nationals," said sophomore right side hitter Cassidy Rea. "Every practice we would spend 10 minutes afterwards with the coaches describing what the stadium is going to look like, what we would do every day and how we would get to places. That visualization helps. Specifically for Midland, we knew that they were the second seed. We were fired up and wanted to beat them."
 
"I felt like we played at a very high level today," said Cook. "Mentally, I see us getting stronger every single day with every match we are in. We are improving mentally, getting more confident and realizing that we deserve to be at this level. We are really enjoying it. We want to set up a tent and stay for a little while and maybe have a little campfire."
 
The Warriors exuded their confidence in the opening set. Down 3-2, Westmont put on an 8-1 run to go up 10-4. Beckman produced three kills during the run and Harrah added two more. Harrah and Rea also teamed up for a block.
 
By the end of the end of the first set, Westmont had turned their six-point advantage into a 13-point victory.
 
The Warriors continued to roll in the second set. After battling to a six-to-six tie, Westmont outscored Midland 11-3 over the next 14 rallies. Dahlberg furnished three kills while Rea and Samantha Neely added two each. Hali Galloway also added a kill to the Warriors' run. Westmont maintained at least a six-point advantage the rest of the set.
 
The third set proved to be more of a challenge to the Warriors who produced service errors on each of their first three serves.
 
"We started to let our foot off the gas a little bit and thought they were going to just hand the set over to us," explained Cook. "That was a good reminder that no team will hand a set over. We have to take it and continue controlling the tempo."
 
Down 11-7, Cook called a timeout to reset her team. Following the break, the Warriors rattled off five straight points to take a 12-11 lead. Brooklynn Cheney and Neely provided kills during the rally.
 
From that point on, neither team gained more than a one-point advantage until a kill by Dahlberg and a block by Dahlberg and Galloway made the score 31-29, ending the set and the match.
 
Rea recorded eight kills and a .353 attack percentage while Neely added six kills and hit .375. Harrah contributed five kills and notched a .333 attack percentage.
 
Junior setter Amy Buffham tallied 22 assists and freshman setter Camryn Kaina posted 16. Providing the defense in the back row, freshman libero Lauren Friis collected 14 serve receptions and 15 digs while Cheney tallied 15 serve receptions and 13 digs.
 
All things considered, Cook was pleased with the performance of her team.
 
"We are getting fantastic production out of Libby," said Cook. "We are getting great production out of Sam. Cassidy did an amazing job swinging away and she gave them a lot of trouble on defense. They didn't know what she was going to do.
 
"Emma was a presence at the net as well. Her quick swing was a threat to them. Taylor played steady defensively as a passer and offensively was hard to stop.
 
"Brooklynn is passing so well. She is super steady. Those were tough serve receives when the servers back up and serve from a long distance. It is more of a chance for a passer to overthink the pass. It didn't faze her. It was awesome to see her be a steady passer in the back row."
 
"Camryn was fearless as a setter," added Harrah, "especially coming in as a freshman and never seeing this tournament before. She was nervous coming in but she has been doing really well and was being consistent. That helps Cassidy and me because she sets us.
 
"I am really excited," said Rea about participating in the tournament. "This team is really fun to play with. I love the games when we are all fired up. We have worked the whole season to be here. We have talked about it literally since day one of training camp. As the stakes rise, I think our performance will as well."
 
Harrah shared Rea's enthusiasm. "I am stoked and all 14 of us here are really stoked. We all have the same mindset, which is that we want to win and we are going to do whatever it takes to get there."