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'Runners weather road trip, rally for RMAC tournament
By Eric Lansing
lansing@mscd.edu

Metro volleyball’s nine-game winning streak came to a screeching halt when they hit a wall in Nebraska. The Lopers of Kearney had defeated the Roadrunners eight consecutive times and made it nine with a 3-0 thumping on Oct. 27 in Nebraska.

“We made way too many errors,” head coach Debbie Hendricks said. “We made the types of errors that we were making in the first week of the season. Our serve-and-pass game really broke down, and that’s a staple for us.”

Metro played well in the first game with a .381 kill percentage compared to the Lopers’ .286 percentage. The Roadrunners also led the match with 20 kills compared to Kearney’s 13. But the non-hitting errors hurt the ’Runners, and handed game one to the Lopers by a 30-24 score.

In her coaching career, Hendricks could not recall having a team hit .381 for a game and still lose. She added that her team was doing a lot of things really well offensively, but handing back a lot of free points, which demoralized her team.

The second game was a different story, with Kearney putting up a higher kill percentage. And once again, it was the mistakes that hurt Metro as 10 errors led to another 30-24 loss. The Roadrunners trailed the entire game. Metro crawled back to within two points (23-21) after a service ace by defensive specialist Amy Watanabe and consecutive kills by middle blocker Sheena Bohannon and outside hitter Stephanie Allison.

But Kearney bounced right back and used three Metro errors and kills by middle hitter Juli Minicz and outside hitters Erica Burson and Shannon Clausen to end the game on a 7-3 run.

Metro committed nine errors in the final game and only had a .171 kill percentage in a 30-25 loss. Metro out-killed the Lopers 53-44 for the match but led with 23 errors, posting an abysmal .227 combined kill percentage in the match.

One could see the frustration in the team as they stormed off the court. Hendricks said it was because most of them have never beaten Kearney.

“The emotion you saw is associated with the fact that we really wanted to beat Kearney,” Hendricks said. “We really wanted that match, but we had to move on and respond quickly for Chadron.”

The Roadrunners took their frustration out on Chadron State (3-29, 2-17 in the RMAC) by making quick work of the Eagles in three straight games, 30-20, 30-20 and 30-21.

Although the ’Runners still made quite a few errors (25), they held Chardon State to a dismal .056 kill percentage. Three Roadrunners had double-figures in kills, including outside hitters Allison (16), Bohannon (14) and Julie Green (12).

“I don’t think that we are that off-track,” Hendricks said. “I think we had a little diversion (against Kearney). We broke down mentally, and I think our response to Chadron was really good. It got us quickly back on our level of confidence.”

The RMAC tournament is next for Metro, the No. 3 seed. The ’Runners travel Nov. 2 to Silver City in western New Mexico to face No. 6 seed Fort Lewis. The Roadrunners defeated the Skyhawks 3-2 in a match earlier this season.

If Metro advances, they will face the winner of the No. 2 and 7 seeds Nov. 3. The No. 2 seed is Nebraska-Kearney.

When asked if the team was itching for a rematch with the Lopers, Hendricks responded with reserved optimism. “We may or may not get another shot at Kearney,” she said. “I think somewhere down the road this team is going to believe that they can beat Kearney. Because they can.”