After weeks of flying high on a slew of blowouts, the Kansas City Kansas Community College Blue Devils brought the Allen Community College Red Devils back down to earth with Wednesday’s sweep.
Coming into Wednesday’s Jayhawk Conference contest ranked fourth in the country by NJCAA officials, the Blue Devils were as advertised as they swept Allen 25-18, 25-17 and 25-14 in the best of five match.
“The Jayhawk Conference is the hardest conference in the nation,” Allen coach Maria Aikins said. “If you look at KCKCC, they’re a testament to that. They got fourth at nationals and they’re a step above where they were last years. Kudos to their coach. They had some of the top hitters from last year and defensively they did a lot better.”
Freshman outside hitter Alyssa Hadzic had a team-leading 10 kills, followed by freshman outside hitters Baylee Belt and Maria Santana with four each. Freshman outside hitter Lauren Brummet had a team leading five aces. Defensively, sophomore libero Audrey Peek edged Belt for the team lead in digs with 20 to Belt’s 18. Brummet and sophomore middle hitter Grace Larimore tied for the team lead in blocks with one each.
“We tried to slow them down a little bit,” Aikins said. “They are going to get theirs. They have some tall girls. You can’t control height, but you can slow them down a little bit with aggressive serves. They picked on a couple of our girls to slow us down.”
With the loss, the Red Devils fell to 8-2 and are winless in the Jayhawk Conference at 0-1. They can even their conference record when they return to the hardwood next Wednesday for a 6:30 p.m. match against Coffeyville (3-9, 0-1).
“This is the first time our team upped their level of play,” Aikins said. “I don’t know what it is, but we play to the level of the team across from us. We have to dictate the tempo. We’re young, and still trying to figure things out, but we’re great for being early in. It’s only the first of September and this is some of our strongest competition.”
