WC falls to Northeastern, to play for 7th place

              Northeastern Junior College (CO), the No. 2 seed in the NJCAA National Volleyball Tournament, swept No. 6 Weatherford College Friday in Hutchinson, Kansas.

              WC (33-5) will face No. 9 College of Southern Idaho in the seventh place match Saturday at 11:30 a.m. to complete their first national tournament.     

              WC lost Friday despite posting a near identical number of kills as Northeastern, 39 for the Plainswomen and 37 for the Coyotes.

              "Offensively, we were right there with them, but we had too many errors, we couldn't put the ball in the court," said Kailee May, WC head coach. "That's what's frustrating, because we work on that daily in practice, minimizing our errors. Today, we just couldn't find the court."

              Weatherford committed 24 errors compared to Northeastern's 10.

              Just as in their loss to Miami Dade on Thursday, WC kept things close in the first set against Northeastern with six lead changes and nine ties. Northeastern won the opening set 25-21.

              "We had a little bit of fight in the first game, just trying to figure it out," May said. "When you're making errors, it's really hard to get out of that funk, and then errors lead to more errors."

              Northeastern (34-3) held the lead throughout the second and third sets, winning 25-20 and 25-13.

              Brooke McHale led WC in kills with 11 and posted a .304 hitting percentage. Abby Folsom had 14 assists and 12 digs. Abby Benitez turned in 14 digs.

              Northeastern's Nervea Alvarez Jorge impressed with 29 assists. Whitney Chintala had 23 digs.

              Saturday's match will be broadcast on ESPN+.