HCC Sports Information
The Hutchinson Community College volleyball team won its 19th consecutive home opener at the Sports Arena and opened the 2017 Jayhawk West season with a victory on Wednesday night.
Sophomore Page Hiebert had a match-high 13 kills and sophomore Nina Pevic tied a career high for kills to lead the Blue Dragons to a 25-14, 25-17, 28-26 victory over the Garden City Broncbusters at the Sports Arena.
Hutchinson improves to 3-2 overall and 1-0 in the Jayhawk West. The Blue Dragons play at Cloud County on Friday night in Concordia. Garden City falls to 1-4 and 0-1 in the conference.
Hiebert hit a season-high .458 with 13 kills and one error on 22 attacks. She had five kills in each of the first two sets that the Blue Dragons won going away.
Pevic matched her career high with 10 kills on 20 swings and no attack errors for a .500 hitting percentage. She was pivotal in a third-set comeback for the Dragons.
Sophomore Tatyana Ndekwe hit .600 with seven kills and freshman Cassidy Crites added six kills on .385 hitting.
The Blue Dragons out-hit Garden City 41-23 and had eight service aces, three from Hiebert and two from sophomore Katie Jorn. Hiebert also led the Dragons with nine digs and freshman defensive specialist Raychel Reed had eight.
Freshman Payton Gawith had 21 assists and Jorn had 15.
The Blue Dragons did have to overcome 12 service errors and seven net violations against the Broncbusters.
Shaney Tiumalo had eight kills and Tijana Simovic had five service aces to lead the Busters.
With the first set tied at 6, The Dragons went on 6-1 run to build a 12-7 lead after a Garden service error. Service errors plagued Hutchison with five miscues from the service line in the opening set. A Hutch service error brought the Busters within 15-13. But the Dragons exploded for a 10-1 run to close the set. A Hiebert kill, service ace and back-row kill gave the Dragons a 22-14 lead. She added another ace and Hutch pulled away for an 11-point victory in the opening set.
The Blue Dragons scored six of the first seven points of the second set, taking a 6-1 lead on a Hiebert kill. The Dragons led 12-7 after a Jorn ace serve, 14-9 after a McKenna Sullivan ace and 16-11 after a Hiebert kill. After a Simovic ace cut the Dragon lead to 16-4, the Dragons scored three straight and closed the set with a 9-4 run. Hiebert's 10th kill of the match closed out the set 25-17.
After massing only 10 kills in the first two sets, Garden City's offense started to connect in the third. A couple of kills, a double-block and back-to-back aces from Simovic gave the Busters a 6-1 lead to start the third set. The Busters kept the Dragons at arm's length through the first two-third of the set, but the momentum started to turn on a wild scramble play where Hutch eventually won the point. Freshman libero Claira Creach wound up in the crowd after making a dazzling save that Hiebert eventually terminated to pull Hutch within 16-14. The Dragons finally tied the set at 19 on a Leonie Weinkaemper/Ndekwe double block. The Dragons had to fight off two Buster set points on kills from Ndekwe and Crites. Tied at 26, Pevic and Patricia Joseph tallied kills to close out the match.