News Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 29, 2009

COMETS GO 0-3 IN SEEDING TOURNEY

The Cottey College Comets struggled over the weekend at the Region/District Seeding Tournament in Union, Missouri. The Comets went 0-3 on the weekend. In the opening match, Cottey was defeated by Region/District champion East Central College 17-25, and 15-25. In the second match, the Comets lost to St. Louis community College-Meramec 13-25 and 8-25, and in the final match St. Louis Community College-Florissant Valley narrowly defeated the Comets 23-25, 25-20, and 10-15.

"East Central is still the powerhouse they were last season, after beating Longview out of the Region/District contest, so we knew our work was cut out for us in this first match of the tournament," said Comets' head coach Marla Kannady Foreman. "However, I feel we stayed with them for the most part, and allowed them to make the errors."

In the end, though, East Central's strength and depth allowed them to pull away from Cottey in the latter stages of both games.

Team leaders for the Comets were Kailey Kelly with 10 assists, Janelle Crowell with three kills, and Emily Moore with six digs.

In the second match, the Comets were completely out-of-sync as they allowed Meramec to dominate both games.

"In game one, we became prone to error, even in the first few minutes of the game, and it haunted us throughout," explained Foreman. "In game two, we were definitely in self-destruct mode, as we allowed them to score a 6-0 run on us before scoring the first point. After that, it didn't get any better, because we were totally unable to place an attack anywhere near suitable for a kill, and I described it later to my players as 'monkey ball.' We were completely out of sorts, and time outs and substitutions just didn't change anything."

Team leaders for Cottey in that match were Kelly with nine assists, Amanda Taylor with two blocks, Kelly and Chrissy Echeverria each had three kills, and Kelly, Moore, and Taylor Means each had two digs.

Between the second and third matches, Foreman had a team meeting to discuss a few things.

"We sat down as a team and had a heart-to-heart talk about where we are now in the season, and where we are planning to head in the future," said Foreman. "Being a member of a team that only has one victory can be very frustrating, and then things can be said on the court that will not help the matter. After establishing the fact that we must stay together as a team, the players were more willing to focus on the support of team members instead of allowing frustrations to filter in on the floor."

Fired up and ready to go, the Comets came out playing hard in game one. About 20 minutes into the match, however, trouble struck when second-year starter Echeverria went down with a foot injury. Initially, it was thought that Echeverria broke her foot, but X-rays determined later that it was only a severe sprain. Still, the loss of experience hurt the team. Despite that, the Comets were still able to score 23 points in that opening game loss.

Feeling good about their team effort in game one, Cottey stepped it up in game two and was able to take the game and tie the match. In game three, the Comets were down 6-8 when the teams traded sides of the net. Flo Valley was able to score the next two points, however, and the Comets couldn't overcome the four-point lead in a game that only went to 15.

"After the match, I talked to the players about match two and match three," said Foreman. "I told them I have three words to describe the comparison of match two and match three, and that was 'night and day.' They knew what I meant from those three words."

Team leaders for Cottey in the third match were Kelly with 21 assists and three aces, Means who also had three aces, Moore with 15 digs, Crowell with six kills. Crowell and Madeline Swidergal tied with two blocks each.

The losses dropped the Comets to 1-9 on the season. This weekend the Comets are at home facing two opponents for Family Weekend. On Friday, October 2, the Comets have a rematch with Ozark Christian College at 7 p.m. and on Saturday, October 3, at 2 p.m. they will face Stephens College.