Nathan Forest
nforest@uwyo.edu
The Wyoming Cowgirls beat the Air Force Falcons on Saturday at Falcon Court in five tight sets.
The Cowgirls won the first set 25-23, 23-25, 25-21, 19-25, 16-14 in a hotly contested match. The Cowgirls move to 20-6 on the season and 10-4 in the Mountain West while the Falcons drop to 11-17 overall and 4-9 in the Mountain West.
The sets the Cowgirls won, they took charge of and did not let go. In set one there was only one lead change and in sets three and five there were no lead changes at all.
Scoring was evenly distributed in the Cowgirl lineup with every player except for setters Courtney Chacon and Cori Aafedt scoring at least one point. But the setters also had stand out nights.
Chacon gave her hitters 31 assists and pulled up 10 digs for the double-double and is only the third Cowgirl to put up at least 30 assists in a game. Aafedt was close behind with 22 assists.
Bridget Shanahan led the Cowgirl offense with 20 points on the night, Laura beach followed close behind with 15 points and four blocks. In all, the Cowgirls had five players get double digit point counts; Reed Copeland and Kayla Henderson both had 11.5, and Kayla Slofkiss had 11.
Reed Copeland is also proving herself to be quite valuable defensively and was involved in seven blocks; two of them were solo blocks.
Allison Waldvogel was a defensive powerhouse as usual and scooped up 19 digs and also had a service ace. Kayla Slofkiss also came up big defensively and grabbed 16 digs on the night, Slofkiss and Lily Austin both put down three service aces.
Akokwe Clement led the Falcon offense with 24 points and also came up with 20 digs. Maggie Sherrill and Shelley Spires followed close behind with 15 points each.
Rebecca Bates was also a major help on the defense with 16 digs and also nailed three service aces. Sarah Hellman put up 28 assists for her hitters, Shanleigh Conlan followed close behind with 22 assists.
Both teams had solid blocking throughout the night, but the Cowgirls out blocked the Falcons who had nine blocks while the Cowgirls had 12.
The Cowgirls next game will be on Saturday, November 14th when the Cowgirls take on San Jose State in Laramie at 6:30 p.m.
