SCC roller-coaster ride ends with three-set loss

COLUMBUS - Southeast Community College-Beatrice volleyball coach Kelly Tucker felt like she was on a roller-coaster Wednesday night, but found nothing amusing about the Lady Storm's three-set loss to Central Community College-Platte in Columbus.

Central won the match 30-15, 30-18, 30-18.

“It's like we're on a roller-coaster,” Tucker said. “We make three or four great plays and then we get off the ride and go stand in line again.”

Tucker said the Lady Storm made too many mental mistakes against a fundamentally--strong Central squad.

“Central is a great team and extremely fundamentally sound,” Tucker said. “We chose not to show up and play early.”

After getting down early, Tucker said the Lady Storm showed signs of playing with Central at the start of the third set.

“We started out point-for-point with them at the beginning, but then we got into a situation and things went bad again,” Tucker said.

Tucker said the Lady Storm missed seven serves in the match, which hurt their effort, and had only 18 total kills as a team.

Central, on the other hand, kept up a constant attack, Tucker said.

“We ended up with more blocks than kills,” Tucker said, “but that was because they (Central) never stopped hitting.”

Mariah Sekutera had a team-high six ace blocks for the Lady Storm in the match, while Ashley Grube led in kills with five.

Tucker said she's trying different things, including switching rotations, to try and get the Lady Storm “fired up.”

“The girls need to decided what they want to do and where they want to go,” Tucker said. “Hopefully, they can pull it together.”

Next action for the Lady Storm will be tonight (Thursday) at 7 p.m. at the Truman Center as they host Lincoln's Union College.

Southeast vs. Central

Ace serves: Southeast (not listed). Kills: Southeast (Ashley Grube five, Kim Belina four, Mariah Sekutera four). Set assists: Southeast (not listed). Ace blocks: Southeast (Grube four, Belina four, Sekutera six, Amanda McConnell five, Katie Thomsen four). Digs: Southeast (not listed).