Lady Cards finish season strong despite flu
Volleyball returns from conference with top honors
Brennon Clark
Issue date: 11/16/09 Section: Sports
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The Lady Cards, the nation's top-ranked team, finished the season with a 27-6 record and two of the conference's top honors. Sophomore Marketa Hanzlova was named SWAC Player of the Year for the second time, and Coach Chris Kosty was named Coach of the Year in his second season at NIC.
On Oct. 29 NIC fell to Salt Lake Community College, the only team to beat the Cardinals in conference play, 3-1 in a match in which the winner would host the Region 18 Tournament.
In Game 1 the Lady Cards were down 4-1 before a Callie Johns kill swung the momentum back to NIC leading to an 8-5 lead. The score shifted back and forth when SLCC went on a 5-0 to push the score to 20-16. From there SLCC did not look back, taking the game 25-20.
Much like the first, the second game proved to be yet another close game. The second game had a total of 14 ties and 10 lead changes. The Cardinals took a 22-21 lead, but after four SLCC points and a NIC serving error, SLCC won the game 25-23.
Down 2-0 going into the third game, NIC took a 17-11 lead and didn't look back. SLCC threatened late in the game after a service ace to make the score 23-20, but after a Fei Gao kill the Cardinals ran the score to 24-20. The Bruins picked up two more points before the end of the game, but came up short as NIC won the game 25-22.
Game 4 sealed the match for SLCC with a convincing 25-16 win over the Cardinals. SLCC scored the first four points of the match, and the Lady Cards could not make up the difference. Freshman and Valle, Columbia native Catalina Charry led SLCC in the match over NIC and talked about playing in the SWAC.
"Every game is a tough game and you have to prepare your minds every day to play," Charry, 19, said." Our conference has the best teams in the nation."
On Oct. 31, the Lady Cards hosted Snow College on Sophomore Day, the day set aside to honor the sophomores' last home game and career at NIC. The Cardinals won the four-game match 3-1.
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