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NWC Volleyball Heads to Miami for Tourney
By RANDAL HOROBIK
Tribune Sports Editor
Talk about your fortuitous scheduling.
With Park County bracing for a temperature plunge into the 20s with snow this weekend, the members of the Northwest College volleyball team are heading south. Way, way south.
The Trappers, currently 14-6 on the season, are heading to Miami. While there probably will be few tears shed over landing in South Florida, make no mistake about the fact that the 2,200-mile trek is much more a business trip than a mid-semester vacation.
The Trappers are scheduled to play in the Miami-Dade volleyball tournament this Friday and Saturday. There, Northwest College will be swimming with some definite volleyball sharks of the junior college volleyball world once play begins Friday morning.
"This is not something we will do every year," Northwest College head coach Flavia Siqueira said of the trip south. "I knew I was going to have a team that could compete against the top teams in the nation and I called (Miami-Dade head coach Origines) Benoit and asked him if we could participate in his annual event."
The Trappers were added to the tournament field, and now they'll have a chance to demonstrate just how well they can fare against some of the nation's top junior college volleyball programs. In pool play alone, the Trappers will face eighth-ranked Missouri State University-West Plains and 12th-ranked Pasco- Hernando College, in addition to tournament host Miami-Dade, currently ranked sixth in the nation.
Additional ranked opponents could lurk during the playoff portion of the tournament.
Northwest College certainly isn't a stranger to high-powered opposition. The Trappers have already faced a pair of top-five opponents in Western Nebraska and Salt Lake Community College this season. NWC also owns a victory over then-No. 12 Northeastern this fall.
"Our goal for the tournament is to play up to the opponents' level," Siqueira said of the loaded tournament field.
In order to do that, the Trappers will need to step up their level of play from this past weekend. Northwest College took its second tumble out of the top 20 this year (see related sidebar) following a 25-22, 26-24, 27-25 loss to Western Wyoming last Friday. The team also had its struggles in an eventual 16-25, 25-16, 26-24, 23-25, 15-13 win at Central Wyoming on Saturday.
"On both matches, we made too many mistakes," said Siqueira. "It is unacceptable for this team to be making as many silly mistakes as we have been lately."
The Trappers' coach noted that, while the team remained fairly solid on defense and within the passing portion of the game, her squad's attacking game suffered.
"The problem was with our hitting percentage," said Siqueira. "Paula (Barros) and Danielle York were the only two consistent hitters this past weekend.
Barros slammed home a team-high 21 kills in the win over Central.
Northwest also logged a 25- 13, 22-25, 26-24, 27-25 win over Rocky Mountain College last week. The win was the Trappers' second of the year over the Battling Bears' JV squad.