Jay Daubenberger

The #10 Seward County Lady Saints continued a tough weekend of competition on Saturday in Cisco, Texas where they picked up 3-0 wins over Victoria and Cisco to wrap up the Wrangler Roundup with three straight sweeps.
Seward County opened day two of the tournament against Victoria with the Lady Saints jumping on the Pirates right off the bat, taking a 4-0 lead before a kill down the middle from Marcelina Pyka increased it to a 5-0 lead. SCCC continued their barrage of attacks to increase their lead to double digits and when Rafaela DaSilva dropped in an ace for a 23-12 lead, the Lady Saints took full control of set one with a final score of 25-17 to take a 1-0 lead in the match. Seward County recorded 17 kills on 33 swings during the first with Clara Duarte connecting on 8 kills with a .538 hit percentage.
The Lady Saints onslaught continued in the second as Seward County took full control early on with a 13-7 lead and never let up, finishing set two with a 25-14 finish to improve their lead to 2-0 over the Pirates. SCCC scored on another 13 kills in the second where Duarte connected on another 5 kills to bring her total to 13 while Patricia Mita scored 3 kills of her own.
Duarte continued her dominance with an early kill from the pin to give the Lady Saints an early 3-1 lead to start the third and they never trailed after. Keala Wilson connected for a huge kill down the line to put Seward County up 11-4 over Victoria and when DaSilva scored off another ace to grow the lead 16-10, the Lady Saints never looked back. Duarte connected down the middle with a powerful spike to grow the lead to nine, giving SCCC a 21-12 lead in set three and Dora Filipovic brought it home with a kill from the pin to win the third 25-18 to sweep the Pirates 3-0 in game three.
Duarte finished with a career high 16 kills on 32 swings while DaSilva recorded 42 assists and Winiffer Rodriguez totaled 16 digs for the match.
The Lady Saints second match of the day pitted them against the Cisco Wranglers where the two teams went nip and tuck to start the first set of the match until a kill from Filipovic tied the score 9-9 and Seward County took the lead for the rest of the first. DaSilva connected with Duarte on a slide to lead the Lady Saints on a 5-0 run that quickly became a 9-0 run to increase the lead to 18-9 for SCCC before taking the first 25-11.
It was more of the same in the second for the Lady Saints as they took another early lead as DaSilva found Filipovic at the pin for another kill to put Seward County up 10-6 over the Wranglers. Wilson connected down the line to grow the lead 20-12 and another kill from the freshman hitter finished the second 25-18 to give the Lady Saints a 2-0 lead.
The third was a slow start for SCCC as Cisco took an early 6-5 lead in the set but was quickly taken over by the Lady Saints and never looked back as they continued their rampage. Duarte scored off a block to give Seward County a 19-11 lead before the set ended 25-15 to give the Lady Saints their second 3-0 sweep of the day after tying up the Wranglers.
Filipovic led the way for Seward County with 15 kills in the match while DaSilva recorded her second straight 40+ assist match with 44 assists overall. Rodriguez was a defensive stalwart for the Lady Saints, recording 21 digs through all three sets.
#10 Seward County finished the Wrangler Roundup 3-1 over the weekend including three straight sweeps over Ranger, Victoria, and Cisco to end the tournament to improve to 6-3 on the 2023 season. They will return home for their conference opener Wednesday, August 30th at 6:30 PM inside the GreenHouse against Colby.