NMMI Sports Press
The Bronco Volleyball team suffered its first loss of the season Thursday evening at the Crystal Inn-vitational in Salt Lake City, trading sets with the host Bruins before ultimately falling 3-2.
Despite one of the worst offensive outings of the season, the Institute managed to stick around and take a couple sets from No. 14 Salt Lake CC, but errors and poor blocking prevented the No. 8 Broncos from sustaining any momentum.
"They gave us those two sets, they had a ton of errors," said NMMI head coach Shelby Forchtner. "We were able to hang around, but we only had two people with positive hitting statistics, so we struggled. Our middles have been running the show and they shut them down, so we were heavily reliant on our two opposites."
Sophomore opposite Leah Linares led the Broncos with 24 kills on 48 attempts with eight errors. Sophomore middle and outside Alyssa Portee converted 9-of-24 tries with three errors. No other player with more than 10 swings finished with a hitting percentage above .100 and the team average was .129.
It was the first long road trip for the Broncos, who opened the season with four wins at home in the NMMI Classic, then took the short trip to Odessa and won four more. Along the way they downed the Nos. 4, 9, 13 and 16th-ranked squads, dropping just a single set in those four matches.
But Forchtner wasn't willing to blame travel for her team's lackluster performance. She also acknowledged her opponent, a Bruin squad hungry for a win after falling from 4 to 14 in the rankings.
"I don't think travel has anything to do with it. We just didn't play well. The inconsistencies just kept creeping in. In the other eight games we've played, we'd go on runs and had somebody back there serving for five, six, seven points and that never happened for us in this game," she explained. "Salt Lake came out guns blazing and really set the tone. They have all the pieces."
After dropping the first set 25-16, the Broncos rebounded and began to resemble the 8-0 team that left Odessa last Saturday. NMMI was running away with the second period before the inconsistent play reemerged, turning a commanding 19-13 lead into a shaky 21-18 advantage. After a timeout, the Broncos finished off the set 25-20.
The teams traded blows to start the third set, but the Bruins quickly took control and raced to a 25-13 win to take a 2-game-to-1 lead. The Broncos jumped out 4-1 to start the fourth period, but the Bruins clawed their way back to within a point at 10-9. The Institute regrouped, cleaned up their play and took advantage of SLCC errors as they sprinted to a 25-13 win to tie the match at 2-all.
In the deciding fifth set, neither team could gain more than a one-point lead until NMMI went up 7-5, but from there, SLCC went on a four-point run and never let the Broncos catch up. The Bruins took the final set 15-11.
After the game, Forchtner talked to her team about communication and energy, two things they'll need in abundance tomorrow at 1 p.m. when they face No. 2 Miami Dade College with their 6-4 middle and 6-3 outside hitter.
"We talked about refocusing and getting back into our consistent mindset and holding each other accountable. They didn't do a very good job of that in terms of body language and effort. We haven't really struggled with that yet," said Forchtner. "We don't have much time to get right because we face one of the best teams in the country in less than 24 hours."