University of Wyoming Cowgirls Club Volleyball Team won a tournament that took place all day Sunday, Oct. 8 in Denver, Colorado. Denver University hosted the tournament at Hamilton Gym.
The Club Team had to go through six different teams to win the tournament. Wyoming ended up beating five of those six teams.
To start the day off Wyoming entered pool play against Colorado University B, Colorado State University B, and Air Force Academy. Against these three teams, Wyoming played them in a best of three games for pool play.
Wyoming beat CSU-B and CU-B by winning the first two games of each series taking the matches by a score of 2-0 for both.
When Wyoming faced Air Force, however, they were not able to fare as well. Wyoming dropped two games in a row, losing the match 0-2.
Following the loss to Air Force in pool play club President Hannah Lutz said, “We did not get down on ourselves.”
The Cowgirls were able to keep their heads up and win two games in a row to reach the championship.
The first two rounds were best of one game.
In the first round, Wyoming faced CU-A and was able to come away with the victory by a score of 25-18.
Offensively Wyoming had an even offensive attack with Madi Bradley, Brenna Fankell, and Brooke White all leading the team with three kills in the game. Lutz added 13 assists and three aces. Defensively Bradley added a block and Fankell had three digs to help secure the win.
In the second round, the Cowgirls faced off against the University of Northern Colorado. Wyoming took this game quickly, winning by a score of 25-11.
Fankell lead the offensive attack with five kills and four aces while Lutz added 14 assists.
Defensively Wyoming blocked UNC four different times. Lutz, Bradley, White and Sam Weber each had a block.
It ended up taking all three games in the championship match for the Cowgirls to take home the title. Wyoming won the first game against CSU-A 25-18, dropped the second game 21-25 and won the final game and tournament on a score of 15-7.
During the three-game series, Fankell filled up the stat sheet with eight kills, four block, seven digs and two aces. She was aided by Maddie Pollart who had 13 kills in the series and White added seven more. Lutz helped out by adding 31 assists over the three games. Lutz and Weber also added three digs each to help the Cowgirls win the Championship.
On the tournament the Cowgirls went 8-3 on games and 5-1 for matches. Lutz had all of the team assists posting 58 assists in tournament play. Pollart and Fankell each had 16 assists during the tournament. As a team the Cowgirls had 61 total kills. Cowgirls ended with 10 blocks and 36 digs.
While the Cowgirls did win the tournament they wound somethings they need to improve on during the week.
Lutz said, “We need to be more in control of the game. A lot of times we would count on teams to make mistakes.” Lutz hopes to be able to clean things up and have a more efficient attack.
Fankell said, “Stay high energy all the time.” In the past the teams has gotten down on themselves but this weekend they were able to stay positive.
The Club team will have a home tournament on Nov. 11 in Half Acre gym on the campus the University of Wyoming campus in Laramie.
