CCS caps long week with Sutherland Tournament crown

    The Chase County volleyball team used six wins last week to up its record to 14-3.
    CCS kicked off its week with a 3-1 win over Class B top 10 ranked Sidney.
    The Longhorns strung together three and four-point runs in the first set and soon had a comfortable seven-point lead. Sidney tightened it up in the end, but CCS took the set 25-22.
    The teams traded the lead often in the second set. CCS held a 22-21 advantage, but Sidney made the most of the final points, leaving the Longhorns with a 22-25 loss.
    CCS bounced back in the third set with a 25-21 win. The Longhorns jumped out to a six-point lead, 14-8. Sidney tied the game at 20, but CCS had the answer and finished off the Raiders in two more rotations.
    The evening ended with a 25-17 CCS win. A five-point run, bringing the score to 16-8, gave the Longhorns a lead they never looked back from in the win.
    Last Thursday, the Longhorns traveled to St. Francis, Kansas and swept the Indians and Dundy County Stratton.
    The first set was close for the first six rotations, but Chase County steadily pulled away as the game went on and put the Indians, ranked in 10th in Kansas 1A, away on the first set point, 25-19.
    With the game tied at 18 in the second set, Jerzee Milner led a five-point run that spurred CCS to a 25-19 win.
    The Longhorns completely outperformed DCS in the second match, 25-10, 25-7. CCS hit 0.514 and, knowing a tournament was coming up, Chase County was able to go to its bench against the Tigers.
    “It was great to be able to get our bench players some varsity time. Volleyball is a hard sport to use a lot of subs in because momentum and rotations are big factors,” Coach April Lambert said.
    The week wrapped up Saturday with a championship at the Sutherland Tournament.
    CCS opened the day with a sweep of the hosts.
    Chase County trailed 13-14 in the first set before Milner and Tristan Nordhausen served CCS to a 25-15 win.
    The Longhorns never trailed in the second set, a 25-17 win.
    Overton, sitting at ninth in the Class D1 point standings, gave the Longhorns their best match of the day in the semifinals.
    Lambert said she talked with her team about it being critical to get the ball in play and let their block and attack go to work
    “We took a little bit of aggression off of our serves and just focused on over the net so that we weren’t giving away free points. We wanted to beat them with our offense and defense instead of our serving,” Lambert said, which led to their best serving match of the week.
    The Longhorns fell behind 0-6 in the first and dropped the set 14-25.
    CCS bounced back to tie the match at two with a 25-21 win in the second set. Trailing 11-13, Joee Clevenger served Chase County to a three-point lead. Overton came back to tie the set at 19, but the Longhorns had enough left in their tank to take the win.
    Both teams left it all on the court in the third set, a 28-26 CCS win. Neither team had more than a two-point lead in the set. It took four-set points for the Longhorns to get the win.
    CCS swept Southwest, sixth in Class D1 point standings, to take the title.
    The Longhorns cruised in the match.
    After taking a 7-6 lead in the first set, Chase County took a 25-15 win.
    Serving with the second set tied at nine, Chloe Dillan gave CCS a 15-9 lead en route to a 25-18 win.
    Looking back on the week, Lambert said everyone was ready for a day off Sunday.
    “The girls worked really hard all week and on Saturday to get better through every game and every practice. It helps to come out of a tough week like that 6-0,” she said.
    Chase County’s freshmen played a Sept. 20 tournament in Scottsbluff, beating Scottsbluff 25-15, 25-20 in their first match and Mitchell 25-17, 25-21 in their second match before falling to Alliance 21-25, 19-25 to end the day.
Up next
    With three 50-point wins last week, the Longhorns are seventh in the Class C1 point standings, which Lambert acknowledged is huge for the Longhorns’ seeding heading into SPVA and the postseason.
    “We are really happy with where we sit with our wild card points right now and we know that is critical to having a top seed in the postseason to give us the best chance to be successful at the end of the year,” Lambert said.
    With tough matches coming up, CCS needs to keep focused on its goals and continue to get better and make adjustments every week, she added.
    CCS took its 14-3 record to Grant Tuesday for a triangular with Perkins County (10-4) and Gothenburg (15-6).
    The Longhorns will be at home Thursday this week for a triangular with Sutherland (10-9) and Maxwell (3-15).
    A third triangular will be next Tuesday in Imperial against Southwest (12-4) and North Platte St. Pat’s (9-8).
    SPVA is just a couple weeks away on Oct. 16.
    With the busy schedule, Lambert is hoping some younger players get to see some more court time in varsity matches.
    “It’s important for them to see those varsity minutes because they do spend a lot of time waiting for their turn,” Lambert said, adding she’s happy with the depth of her team.
    “I feel really confident that we have several players who could step in at any moment if we needed them to and we would pretty much be at the same level,” she said.
    Joining CCS in the C1-12 subdistrict will be Chadron, Hershey, Mitchell and Ogallala.
    With the highest seed hosting the subdistrict, as strong finish will be important.
    Hershey (11-5) is 12th, Ogallala (12-6) is 16th and Mitchell (14-3) is 18th in the point standings.
    Subdistrict games will be Oct. 25-26. District finals are scheduled for Oct. 30.