NMMI Sports Press

The No. 9 Bronco Volleyball team lost a heartbreaker in five sets to the visiting Midland College Lady Chaparrals on Saturday afternoon at Cahoon Armory. It was just the second home loss on the season, both coming at the hands of conference rivals.

NMMI edged Midland 25-23 in the first set after falling behind 22-16. The comeback started with a couple big kills from the left side by sophomore Baby Moleni, then a block on the right from sophomore Allyah Tokelau. An ace serve by sophomore Barbara Guedes, a Tokelau kill in the middle, a well-placed touch shot by Moleni and a long hit by Midland tied the set at 23-all.

A Moleni kill and a big solo block in the middle from freshman Vitoria Oliveira put the first period away. In the second, the Broncos again found themselves trailing for much of the set, but a string of unforced errors from the Lady Chaps handed it to NMMI.

“We won the second set because they committed six errors in a row, not because we earned it,” said Bronco head coach Shelby Forchtner. “We’ve been talking about that. Every week we have to earn every point, every set, every match. We need to be the first to five, first to 10 and so on, and today we did not play like that at all.”

The Broncos led for most of the third set, but with the score tied at 21, things began to unravel for the Institute. Midland found open spots on the floor to score and began playing better defense, while the Bronco offense went a bit stale. Oliveira tried to pump up her teammates with a big kill to pull within a point at 24-23, but hard-hitting Midland sophomore Zoe Fernandez finished off the third set with a big hit that Oliveira couldn’t send back over the net.

The Broncos looked stunned for half of the fourth set, falling behind 13-4, but went on a 5-1 run to close the gap to 14-9. Then the errors started to pile up while Midland’s confidence grew.

NMMI jumped out to 9-5 lead in the 15-point final set, with Oliveira making smart plays at the net, hitting it hard when she needed to and placing shots when the spots were open. With an 11-8 lead, a couple blocks went out of bounds, another snuck through the block and was mishandled on the back end and a nicely placed ball from Midland’s Julia Kabala tied the set at 11-all.

Midland pulled ahead 13-11, but Oliveira made another great touch shot and a block from freshman Kekililani Helekahi and Guedes tied the score. Freshman Leah Linares blasted one from the left side to put the Broncos one score away from the win, but Midland tied it on a shot to the open middle of the NMMI side. Linares again gave her team the lead on another loud kill from the left, but a Helekahi service error tied it again.

A long shot from Tokelau and a rare reception error by sophomore libero Mio Yamamoto ended the match and snapped a four-game conference winning streak for the Broncos.

Oliveira was the only bright spot on offense. The freshman from Brazil had 14 kills on 29 tries with just two errors for a hitting percentage of .414. The Broncos hit .145 as a team. Oliveira also had two solo blocks, two assisted blocks and four digs.

“Vitoria has started to play much better for us lately,” Forchtner said. “She was inconsistent the first four conference matches and we needed her to be better in these last two games and she was.”

Yamamoto led the defensive effort with 31 digs, a little below her season per set average, which makes sense as teams try to avoid the All-American with their shots.

“They hit at everyone else and we told them they were going to,” Forchtner said. “And that’s exactly what teams are going to do against us. They know how good she is and they will try to avoid her.”

With so much inconsistent play from match to match, Forchtner has been left wondering which team will show up on game day.

“We can sweep people. We did it against No. 6 Odessa, we did it against Clarendon on the road,” she said. “But then we come out like this, giving so many points away and good teams take advantage of that. And this conference is full of good teams. We have to find ways to be more consistent in everything we do.”

Next up for the Broncos is a home match with Frank Phillips College on Wednesday at 6 p.m.