BBCC Drops Three Straight Sets to High-Powered Hawks Offense

Big Bend Community College faced a formidable Columbia Basin College squad in their conference home opener on Wednesday, October 2nd, and struggled to get their offense rolling from the start. With high expectations and a need to be in top form to compete with CBC, every miscue became magnified as the Lady Vikes found themselves outmatched by the Hawks.

The match started off rough for BBCC, as they dropped the first set 25-16. Despite showing signs of improvement in the second set, the Lady Vikes couldn't sustain momentum and lost 25-18. The third set saw BBCC run out of steam entirely, with Columbia Basin completing the sweep, taking the final set 25-9.

While the Lady Vikes' offense wasn't firing on all cylinders, familiar names still managed to make an impact on the stat sheet. Audrey Wellhausen led the charge with 6 kills, posting a solid hitting efficiency of .333. She also contributed on defense with 3 block assists and a solo block. Hailey Buehner matched Wellhausen with 6 kills of her own but it wasn't enough to stave off the CBC onslaught. Head Coach Alexa Moser had this to say regarding the loss.

"We came out of the gate competing but too quickly we let them go on a run of 8 points. The rest of the match was back and forth after that but when you lose 25-16 and know they had that run of 8, it's frustrating. And then again in set 2, we were keeping up with them, fighting point for point but then towards the end of the set we let them go on a run of 7. You just can't expect to win games against good teams like that when you're constantly trying to dig yourselves out of a hole. Set 3, we just fell apart and couldn't keep up at all. The girls ran out of steam and we fell behind from the start."

After Moser reflected on the loss she highlighted the ramifications by stating.

"Tonight was definitely a frustrating loss, CBC is a very good team but I feel like we didn't compete at the level I know we can. They are one of the best teams in our league let alone in the entire NWAC and that's a team you can't slip up or they will run with it as we saw tonight. It was an off night for us and in this league, you can't have those nights with how competitive the East Region is."

Coming off of a clean sweep versus Blue Moutain Community College in thier previous match Moser explained how they prepared for Wednesday's home opener.

"Practice this week have been very efficient and focused on a lot of technique/break down of skill. Part way through season I always like to go back and really fine tune our skills… passing, hitting, blocking etc. When we get into the rhythm of season it's easy to just forget about the basics and always focus on who you're playing and how we're playing together and lineups/rotations etc. It's always just a good reset. Blocking was one of the main focuses that we took time to break down knowing we were facing one of the top hitters in the NWAC this week. Tonight was very frustrating to not see that translation from practice to game. We knew who their best hitter was and how fast and in system of an offense they ran but we just couldn't keep up."

BBCC gets set to face off versus the Yakima Valley College Yaks on Friday October 4th looking to get back above the .500 mark at the Devries Activity Center in Moses Lake, WA. As always, keep up with the Vikings on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, as well as through the NWACSports Network's livestream video platform, where available.