ANDREW TOWNE
Sports editor
CORSICANA, Texas – The Neosho County Community College volleyball team brought back three wins from Texas in the team's yearly trip to the Labor Day Invitational volleyball tournament.
"It's always nice to go to Texas and come home with three wins," Coach Asya Herron said. "They have a lot of really good volleyball players with a lot of (NJCAA) Division I schools. You are talking about full rides (scholarships)."
The Panthers opened the weekend with a 3-1 (25-22, 21-25, 25-14, 25-19) loss to Odessa (Texas) College.
"It's still the same thing. We are still working on consistency and getting freshmen comfortable in their positions and roles."
Freshman Ryed Creek paced the Panther attack with nine kills.
However, things picked up from there for Neosho County.
The Panthers rattled off three straight wins, including a five-set match that went down to the wire against Western Texas College.
After dropping the first two sets 25-20 and 25-23, Neosho County won the next three sets (25-21, 25-23, 15-12) to take the match, 3-2.
Sophomore Maryssa Recio tallied a whopping 20 kills in the win. Chandler Karr was the next closest with seven.
"Maryssa had a good weekend," Herron said. "She started a little rough on Friday and ended up being the go-to the rest of the weekend."
On Saturday, the Panthers pulled off two sweeps.
In the first game of the morning, Neosho County knocked off Frank Phillips College, 25-23, 27-25, 25-20.
Creek led the Panther offense with nine kills, while Recio added seven. Defensively, three Panthers tallied double-digit digs with sophomore Kylie Corneliusen recording 18. Sophomores Madison Miller and Breann Becker chipped in 16 and 10, respectively.
In the final match of the weekend, the Panthers brushed aside Temple College, 25-18, 25-14, 25-19.
Recio led the team with 11 kills and two blocks, and defensively, Miller had 21 digs and Becker 14.
"It was a good experience for our kids to go see different teams outside of our conference who are very successful," Herron said. "We still have plenty to work on. We are looking forward to tomorrow and our home opener."
The Panthers (7-3) opens the home portion of the schedule today at 6:30 pm against Allen County Community College.
Neosho County has already seen and beaten Allen County back on Aug. 26 at the Fort Scott's Greyhound Invitational.
"Our goal is to be aggressive, offensively and defensively on the net, to keep our tempo on our side and let them make the errors," Herron concluded. "We want to be the aggressors."
Becker, Recio earn All-Tournament team honors
Neosho County sophomores Breann Becker and Maryssa Recio were named to the Labor Day Invitational All-Tournament team.
For the tournament, Becker dished out 41 assists and had 44 digs, while Recio 42 kills and six blocks.
All-Tournament list:
Breann Becker (Neosho County)
Alice Bermudez (Navarro)
Madison Brown (Western Texas)
Bojano Bolozan (Odessa)
Caitlyn Crockett (Temple)
Hayley Daniel (Navarro)
Mariana Ferreira (Odessa)
Dayaa Garrett (Frank Phillips)
Maryssa Recio (Neosho County)
Mikaela Sako (Temple)
