Cowgirls fall short against Kansas, UAB

Richard Anderson photos
From left, Tasha Weishahn, Sam Eley and JennaRae Jester get ready to receive the serve Friday against Kansas. At bottom, Jenna Arneson returns a shot against the Jayhawks.

By Richard Anderson
Wyoming Sports.org

By putting your thumb and index finger together as near as you can without touching, you can measure how close the Wyoming Cowgirls came to knocking off Big 12 foe Kansas Friday morning in the first match of the UniWyo Cowgirl Classic at the UniWyo Sports Complex.

Yes, the Cowgirls missed it by that much.

Kansas (5-2) battled back after two opening losses to edge Wyoming 27-29, 23-25, 25-23, 26-24 and 20-18.

Each game was that close as well.

“I’m really pleased with their effort. I’m really pleased with their performance and execution,” Wyoming head coach Carrie Yerty said of her first home match of her career at UW. “For the most part they executed the game plan well and they did a good job at mixing up shots. We did a great job with our ball control.”

Close but no cigar was the theme of the day for the Cowgirls, as Alabama-Birmingham held on for another five-game thriller later that night, beating the Cowgirls 25-14, 25-19, 26-28 and 19-17.

Along with Yerty, several players competed for the first time in front of the home fans against Kansas, including sophomore transfer Dani Bedore. Although the young Cowgirls have yet to break into the win column, it’s not from a lack of effort.

“We did a really good job; we were really competitive,” Bedore said. “KU is a really good team. We did a good job of staying excited and everything. I think we can compete. Our coach tells us to compete every day in what we do. As long as we compete, we’re OK.”

That was certainly the case against Kansas. While Wyoming out-hit the Jayhawks and basically out-played them the entire match, the two things UW didn’t finish was serving and making the plays at match-point. Wyoming, which tried the short serve to off-set the bigger and stronger Kansas middle attack, had 13 service errors, to just one ace. The Cowgirls also had five chances at match-point -- one in the fourth game and four in the fifth and deciding game.

“For us, anytime we get match point, the staff and the team really have to find a calmness because they really want to win so bad,” Yerty said. “They’ve worked so hard and they are such good kids, they are pleasers. We’re going to have game-point again and we’re going to terminate on those game points and we’ll execute on those game-points.”

Offensively, senior Tasha Weishahn ran a strong game with 67 set assists in the match, easily a season-high. Weishahn’s diversity in distribution enabled Bedore and fellow sophomores JennaRae Jester, Lauren Whitney and Jenna Arneson to all have double-digit kills matches. Bedore led the way with 21 kills, followed by Jester with 17, Arneson with 14 and Whitney with 13. Wyoming hit .309 in the five games.

“I think Tasha set one of the best matches of her life today. She has to do a really good job of manipulating our offense to open up hitters; especially playing Kansas, which is traditionally a very strong team in the Big 12,” Yerty said. “She was solid, she was a rock. She was on auto pilot like a senior setter should be. That’s why she is our captain.

“J-Rae is a player who just plays smart. She might not be the most athletic player on the court, but she will beat people because she is smart. Danni is a tank. She is a freight train. That’s exciting to have that for a few more years.”

Bedore said they are becoming solid on and off the court.

“We all get along really well. We accept everybody with what they bring into the team,” Bedore said. “We’ve been practicing really hard, competing for everything.”

Despite the loss to the Jayhawks, Yerty said her young team is competing with composure.
“I’m really proud of this team,” she said. “They really played well, but that is what I expect from them and they know that. That’s not going to be something that just shows up every now and again, that’s how we should play especially when we are at home.”

Kansas, which hit .278, was led by Karina Garlington with 23 kills and Natalie Uhart and Savannah Noyes with 15 kills each.

Against UAB, the Cowgirls overcame a slow start this time and nearly pull out the win in the deciding fifth game.

“I think we came out real slow to begin the match,” Yerty said. “I’m not sure if that was because we were satisfied with how we played against Kansas earlier in the day or thought we would play at that same level. It took us to game three to get jump-started and then the players showed a tremendous amount of heart to come back and win those games. In game five, we had opportunities to win and at critical times we made key errors that we could control. The players understand what they need to do.”

Four Cowgirls finished the match in double figures, led by Whitney with a career high 20 kills. Arneson added 13, Jester had 12 and Bedore 10. Carissa Lee led the way with 19 digs.

The Cowgirls, 0-8, will continue to look for that elusive first win Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. against Cleveland State.