News

By Ryan Schlehuber, MCC Sportswriter

The Montcalm Community College Centurions women’s volleyball team is now 5-3 in the month of September, so far, after collecting back-to-back wins against Great Lakes Christian and Alpena. 

The Centurions (1-2 MCCAA Northern, 5-10 overall) snapped a two-game losing streak with its 3-1 road win over Great Lakes Christian College Friday, Sept. 19, and earned their first conference win by beating Alpena Community College, 3-0, at home, Monday, Sept. 22. 

Against GLCC, MCC won in four sets, 25-19, 19-25, 25-20 and 25-12, thanks much to the team’s great hitting percentage. In the second set, the Centurions hit .303, then .207 and, in the fourth and final set, they reached .300 again. 

Collectively, six Centurions players hit .250 or better against GLCC. Freshman Emily Davis (Jenison, Mich.) led the team in kills with 12, followed by sophomore Katelyn Bignall (Belding, Mich.) and freshman Andie Bennett (Reed City, Mich.), who each finished with seven. Bignall also had three blocks.  

“It was a little harder preparing for this team as we couldn’t find any film online, so we studied their individual statistics and we figured out their strong hitters from that,” MCC head coach Kara Youngs said. “We figured out their strong players were their two middle hitters, so we knew then to try and get them out of system as much as we could, focusing on causing miscommunication and taking out their middle opportunities as best as we could.” 

The Centurions were without freshman Edy Davidson (Carson City, Mich.) and, during play against GLCC, freshman Hailey Guerra (Grant, Mich.) went down with an ankle injury. Despite losing two good hitters, Youngs said her team adjusted well. 

“The first set we did pretty well,” she said. “(GLCC) came back towards the end, but we were able to finish them off. The hard part for us was that we missed a lot of serves and they started blocking a little better.” 

Sophomore Jordan Dompreh (Flint, Mich.) was quite productive, finishing with 18 assists, 11 digs and six kills. Leading in digs was sophomore libero Jaden Gomez (White Cloud, Mich.), who had an impressive 23, followed by sophomore Briley Andres (Cedar Springs, Mich.), with 14, and freshman Erin Borek (Grand Rapids, Mich.), with 12. 

Dompreh was happy to see her team’s offense “clicking” once again, after suffering back-to-back losses to Bay College and Grand Rapids Community College last week. 

“I think what clicked well for the team was all our hitters were ‘on’ in the sense that we had multiple girls putting the ball away at once, which gave us many options for scoring,” Dompreh said. “We usually have a very strong defense, so when our offense matches, that’s when we start seeing wins.” 

She said when the Centurions build up their energy, that, too, usually allows Montcalm to get after a win. 

“I think what was clicking for me, personally, was my energy,” she said. “As a team that truly feeds off energy, when one person is fired up, the whole team rises to that level.” 

With momentum back on their side, the Centurions were aiming to keep up their hot hitting against rival Alpena Lumberjacks (0-2 MCCAA Northern, 1-7 overall) and gutted out a competitive three-set win, winning 25-20, 25-18 and 26-24. 

Though MCC’s hitting wasn’t as on the mark as it was against GLCC, Youngs’ team showed it could keep its composure in tight situations and didn’t allow Alpena to steal a set. 

Youngs said the two-day rest between games helped tremendously as the team figured out a new rotation with Davidson and Guerra still out due to injury. 

“The big thing was we were able to regroup and refocus,” Youngs said. “We had really good front row stats before we faced Grand Rapids CC and so we focused on getting that back.” 

Once again, Davis led the Centurions in kills with 13, followed by Dompreh and Kent, who each had five. Freshman setter Ella Bishop (Grand Rapids, Mich.) finished with 23 assists and tied Gomez with a total of nine digs while Andres had seven digs. Kent led the team with two blocks. 

Youngs said Davis has been impressive so far this season, which she expected, and praised Dompreh for being able to transition from setter to outside hitter in the wake of losing players to injury. 

“With Emily, you were going to see her numbers and hear her name often and she hasn’t disappointed,” Youngs said. “In the last couple weeks, Jordan and Alanna have done a great job of transitioning into new positions to help the team. Jordan stepped up to be the second outside position and she’s doing really well with that.” 

Youngs said having a deep bench where many players can move to a second position has helped the team stay “in-system” without much change at all in cohesion and gameplan. 

“It’s unfortunate to lose two middles, but we’re making the moves and our players have adapted well to the changes. That speaks volumes about our bench,” she said. 

The Centurions have two more games to finish out September with a road game this Friday, at 6:30 p.m. against North Central Michigan (2-1 MCCAA Northern, 10-4 overall) in Petoskey, and then coming back home to face Delta College (0-3 MCCAA Northern, 4-6 overall), on Monday, Sept. 29, which game time is at 6:30 p.m. 

Dompreh said she is looking forward to getting tested against one of the best teams in the conference in NCMC. 

“I know our game on Friday is going to be tough. They have a big front row with big swings,” she said. “Our main goal is keeping our offense in system and controlling those swings so we have the option to use our hitters as that is where we shine. If we can handle and control North Central, that will give us the confidence boost we need to take on Delta, head-on.”