OUCH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Cowley Volleyball team let the game get away from them Thursday night, losing to Southwestern Illinois 16-30, 30-25, 20-25, 30-15.
In a strange game of huge momentum shifts Southwestern slowly but surely wrested the game away from Cowley. By the last game it was pretty well over.

Cowley plays again at 3 p.m. Friday. The team could play again at either noon or 3 p.m. Saturday, depending on the outcome of Friday's game.

"We just got out played. You can't expect to win when you do that," coach Joanna Pryor said.
"We did not do well under pressure."

She noted that the team missed five serves in the third game, and those came at crucial times when Cowley was starting to get some of its momentum back.

In the first game Cowley steamrolled Southwestern 30-16. Cowley had several five or six point runs and outscored Southwestern 16-6 down the stretch.

In the second game Cowley jumped out to a 6-2 lead and seemed on its way. The team stretched the lead to 14-8, but then Southwestern began its comeback.
With a few missed serves and with Southwestern playing much better, Cowley was outscored 22-11 from that point.

The third game was close throughout and again Southwestern prevailed 30-25.
In this game shots were just not falling for Cowley. The same shots that were kills in the first game, were hit to defenders and blocked in this game.

The final game was tied at 8 but after a couple blocks, Southwestern went on a 7-1 run and never looked back.
Cowley had lost its spark by the final game and lost 30-15.

Southwestern coach Jeff Juenger said errors were the key to the game. He noted that his team made 11 in the first game while Cowley only made four. THey had about the same amount in the second game, but in the third game his team cut its errors to three and that gave them the margin they needed.

He said he told his team after the first game that they had to cut out the errors, which they did.
"There was a huge momentum shift. The first game you are just finding out about each other. Its's the second and third games that matter most in these matches," he said.