Cowgirls pick up first win

Richard Anderson photos
UW sophomores Dani Bedore, left, and Jenna Arneson block a shot by a Cleveland State player on Saturday night. At bottom, the Cowgirls celebrate a point in the three-game win.

By Richard Anderson
Wyoming Sports.org

There is no denying that winning brings out more smiles than just playing well.

The Wyoming Cowgirls were all smiles Saturday as they picked up their first win of the year with a three-game sweep of Cleveland State to close out the UniWyo Cowgirl Classic.

After opening the season with eight straight losses, including two heart-tugging five-game defeats to open the tournament, the Cowgirls were in complete control in the 25-18, 25-19, 25-21 triumph over the Vikings.

“One of our goals is to stay energized, just compete and have some fun,” Wyoming senior setter Tasha Weishahn said. “That is the biggest thing with this team right now, just to have fun. That’s what we went out to do and we did it. It was fun.”

Wyoming, which lost 90 percent of its offense due to graduation, went into the season with two tough road tournaments, including last week in Hawaii where the Cowgirls faced two Top 15 teams.

It’s been a growing process that grew even more playing in front of the home fans for the first time this season the last two days.

When the Cowgirls dropped the two five-game matches on Friday, Weishahn said it was frustrating, yet it gave them a sense of hope, knowing that they can play with good teams.

“We battled, we fought and we got better this weekend with our new lineup,” she said. “We went through some adversity, but we fought hard and it was good.”

The Cowgirls not only picked up their first win of the season, but gave Carrie Yerty her first victory as Wyoming head coach.

“We had some good matches and I don’t want to take away from the fact that they really challenged a Big 12 team (Kansas) and UAB (Alabama-Birmingham), we went five with them and they have gone to the NCAA Tournament,” Yerty said. “Cleveland State went to the NCAA Tournament the last two years, so that is a good win for us. It was a good starting point and we got the big goose egg off of our back and now we can just play.”

For much of this young season, Weishahn, along with libero Carissa Lee and libero turned outside hitter Samantha Eley have been the lone beacon of experience on a very young team that is dominated with sophomores.

One of the top setters in the Mountain West Conference, Weishahn’s numbers were a little low through the first six matches. Those numbers got a boost in this tournament.

“They are all sophomores and all are pretty young for the most part,” Weishahn said. “They are starting to get comfortable, playing some matches, and they are starting to get into a groove. We are playing well right now.”

Weishahn added that every hitter is a little different to set to and she is beginning to get a feel of what each athlete likes to hit.

“We have a libero playing outside, so she is just hitting high balls right now,” Weishahn said. “Jenna Arneson is playing middle and she is just so diverse athletically, she can hit just about anything. It is a lot of fun; I can run a lot of offense.”

Against Cleveland State, Wyoming controlled much of the match and even when the Vikings would make a late run, the Cowgirls never let that run get out of hand.

Yerty said they did a better job of maintaining their composure and showed marked improvement with their serving game. Wyoming had 34 service errors in the first two matches, but just three against the Vikings.

“Tonight, we did a really good job, missing just three serves in three games, which is a great average to have,” Yerty said. “The girls competed hard and executed a lot better and didn’t get frazzled in tight situations, which is what we focused on.

“I think in the tight situations, we did a better job of handling what we were supposed to do, as to what the other side was doing. We’re young, so we’re teaching them to be aggressive and we’re really trying to talk about composure.”

Sophomore Dani Bedore led the way on Saturday with 14 kills, with sophomore Lauren Whitney and JennaRae Jester adding nine kills each. Weishahn had eight kills, along with 32 assists and Arneson added six kills. Wyoming hit .396 on the night.

Both Bedore and Weishahn were named to the all-tournament team.

“Danni had a great night tonight and Tasha set a wonderful tournament,” Yerty said.

UAB won the tournament, with Kansas finishing second. Also named to the all-tournament team were Aleksandra Vujovic and Ivana Bozic, both of UAB and Kansas teammates Karina Garlington and Natalie Uhart. UAB’s Casey Dent was named the tournament’s most valuable player.

Wyoming will open up conference play next week by hosting BYU (Friday) and Utah (Saturday) Both matches are set to begin at 7 p.m.