BLUE DRAGONS FALL IN 5 SETS AT COLBY

Hutchinson CC Sports Information

COLBY – Eight points away from a season sweep of the Colby Trojans and earning a key tie-breaker in the Jayhawk West title chase, the Hutchinson Community College volleyball team wound up suffering a damaging five-set loss Thursday night.

Colby rallied all the way back to stun the Blue Dragons in a 19-25, 17-25, 25-21, 25-18, 17-15 victory to all but end Hutchinson's 2021 Jayhawk West title chances.

The Blue Dragons fell to 16-7 overall and 9-4 in the Jayhawk West. Hutchinson is in third place in the Jayhawk West. Colby is 8-5 overall and 5-4 in league play. Hutchinson looks to rebound on Monday with a road trip to Dodge City.

This is the second time this season that the Blue Dragons lost a match in which it won the first two sets. The other was against No. 12 Eastern Wyoming in January in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Hutchinson dominated the first two sets, but Colby's block and back-row defense stared to frustrate the Blue Dragons. The Trojans won nearly every long rally and dominated the next over the final three sets.

Down 14-11 in the fifth, the Blue Dragons nearly completed a miraculous rally of their down. Hutchinson fought off four match points against before an attack error ended the rally in the fifth match point.

Hutchinson is now 2-3 in five-set matches this season.

Jenna Thorne and Chloe Price each posted double-doubles and libero Shelby Reeder had a career-high in digs against the Trojans.

Thorne finished with a team-high 16 kills and had 16 digs for her team-high 15th double-double of the season.

Price racked up 47 assists and added 15 digs for her seventh double-double.

Reeder tallied 29 digs for the Dragons

Kristina Head had 14 kills with two solo blocks and three block assists. Myracle Lettries added three block assists. Kersti Nelson also turned in a season-high 12 digs.