Seward Swept at Hutch

Jay Daubenberger

– With the final two weeks of the 2024 campaign quickly wrapping up, the Seward County Lady Saints made their final road trip of the regular season with a drive to Hutchinson where they took on the Blue Dragons who flamed out SCCC in all three sets to hand Seward County a loss to end the week.

The two Jayhawk Conference rivals went toe to toe with each other as the Lady Saints and Blue Dragons exchanged points with an overpass kill down the middle from Keala Wilson helping to keep the score even at 7-7. Despite finding some offensive firepower in the forms of Mariana Silvaand Zeynep Olcay Balci who each slammed in a couple of kills, Hutchinson was able to pull away with a lead of their own before a spike from the middle by Marcelina Pyka helped trim the gap back to six at 18-12. Even though SCCC showed sparks of hope, they unfortunately fell behind to another Blue Dragons run where even though a hammer from Lajla Rasljanin put Seward County over the fifteen-point mark, they eventually fell in set one 25-15.

Hutchinson once again propelled themselves to an early lead over the Lady Saints due to costly receiving errors from SCCC but were able to stay within reach thanks to a pair of kills from the pin by Ana Nikolic to cut the deficit to 10-6. Nikolic struck again later when she paired with Pyka on a roof raising block to keep the difference in single figures which Keala Wilson helped trim away at with a kill from the right side to make it 20-12 Blue Dragons. Silva and Pyka added on a few more kills in the second to once again put SCCC at the fifteen-point mark but once more fell to Hutchinson 25-15 to fall behind two sets to none.

Wilson got the Lady Saints off to a hot start in set three with back-to-back aces that was followed by a huge block from Rasljanin and Nikolic to give Seward County a 7-3 lead. They continued their charge with Wilson finding Rasljanin in the center of the net for another SCCC kill and seconds later Rasljanin struck again with a rocket through the Blue Dragons to make it a 16-11 lead for the Lady Saints. Seward County’s lead was short lived as a 10-1 run by Hutchinson moved them back in front 21-17 to force SCCC into a timeout but could not rally the troops as they fell 25-19 in set three.

Seward County falls to 8-16 overall on the 2024 season with a Jayhawk Conference record of 4-10. The Lady Saints will prepare for the final week of the regular season as they take on Dodge City for their pink out game inside of the Green House on Wednesday at 6:30 PM.