Cougars defeat Portagers in 3 games

And although the Portagers’ strategy focused on just that, the Cougars’ attack at the net proved to be too much.

“I told them if we could stop them at the net and block, we could have really took control of the game,” Keith said. “And we tried hard stopping it at the net, but then had to work really hard digging it out of the back. We had great serves tonight and some great plays, but just couldn’t make it work.”

For the Portagers, Ashley Hobart had five points with two aces, 13 digs, 10 spikes and five kills, Jennica Mathieu had four points with one ace, 21 digs, eight spikes, two blocks, three assists and served at 100 percent, Sherece Revolt scored three points with 30 digs, two blocks, 16 sets, one tip and four assists, Lindsay Nesburg had one point with two digs, Kailani Buckner had one point with one ace, 26 digs, nine spikes, one kill, two blocks, and 25 sets, Nicole Slater had one point with one ace, 24 digs, eight spikes, five kills, and four assists, Katie Prielipp had 29 digs, one spike, and three sets, Ashley Schultz had eight digs, and Diamond Kimpel had five spikes one block, and one tip.

Cougars’ coach Catherine Balanda had her team working on a new formation during the match.  “We usually play a 6-2 and we were playing a 5-1 for the first time tonight, so there was a little bit of confusion there in the beginning, but they were able to work it out, so that was really good,” she said. “Usually we are a little bit more cohesive, but at first, we just didn’t seem to gel as well.”

CCA proved they could gel in the new formation however, as they continued to control the lead and pace of the match throughout.

Onekama’s Ashley Hobart (5) tries to spike the ball past CCA’s Chloe Balanda (9) and Amy Thorne (10) on Thursday night at Onekama. CCA won the West Michigan D League match in three games. (Dylan Savela/ News Advocate)

The Cougars’ Amy Thorne had 20 points from the service line, including a string of the final eight points of the first game, and a string of five in the third.

CCA’s Chloe Balanda had nine kills and 12 digs while Jacklyn Gerst had 10 kills and Brooklyn Carroll Hammer had 25 assists.

“Obviously (our) hitting was good,” said Catherine Balanda. “I thought they did great. I thought their blocking was good. One of the things we’ve been working on in practice this week is putting on a strong block and they did do that. I was happy.”