Dani Cruz hammered down 18 kills and the Western Nebraska Community College moved to second place in the South Conference with a straight-set win over McCook Community College 25-21, 25-20, 25-23 Saturday afternoon at Cougar Palace.

                Cruz, the red-shirt sophomore from Mexico, said this was an important game and the team responded.

                "I think we played really solid. I think everyone was doing their job and we stayed composed when under pressure and took advantage of the moments," she said. "These two wins this weekend are really important because we started the season kind of rough and having this little streak of winning has been special for everyone. It just makes us feel more confident."

                The win was huge as the team moved to 4-1 in conference play while McCook dropped to 3-2. The Cougars are 6-16 overall and will have three matches this week, beginning with a home match Tuesday at 6 p.m. against Casper College, a team the Cougars lost to in five sets on September 2.

                After that, the Cougars will hit the road for two important sub-region contests when they face Trinidad State College on Friday and then Otero College on Saturday.

                Cruz said the game Tuesday is important to keep building towards the Region IX Tournament in which they host November 5-8.

                "I think it really motivates us to play against Casper because last time we lost in five," she said. "We know we have the fire in us to win against them and we know we know we can do it in three sets. We just have to have the attitude."

                All three sets were battles between two evenly matched teams. The first set saw WNCC build a 13-9 lead after a Cruz point and later led 16-12 on two Eli Braithwaite points. WNCC pushed the lead to 19-13 on two Emma Hergenreder points and led 21-14. That was when McCook came storming back as they cut the deficit to 22-20. WNCC finished off the first set on a Cruz kill to win 25-21.

                The second set was back and forth. WNCC held a 12-11 lead when Cruz hammered a kill and then served three points for a 16-11 lead. WNCC led 23-17 and held on for the 25-120 lead.

                The third set saw WNCC run to a 7-2 lead behind three Cruz service points. WNCC led 12-8 before McCook came storming back to take a 14-12 lead. McCook led 20-17 when the Cougars got the serve back on a missed serve. Kyana Gabriel served two points to tie things at 20.

                McCook came back to lead 22-21 but Cruz got a kill and Natalia Nowak had two service points for a 24-22 lead. WNCC won 25-23.

                Cruz led the team with 18 kills, nine service points, five digs, and two aces. Keira Zelada and Gabriel each had nine kills. Zelada also had five digs and two blocks while Gabriel had six points, three digs, and an ace.

                Anika Davison finished the game with two kills, while Braithwaite had two kills, four digs, four points, an ace serve, and three blocks. Hergenreder tallied three points with eight digs and an ace serve. Nowak had 39 set assists, eight points, and four digs, while Alex Gonzalez-Orozco had nine digs; and Nadiyyah Northern had six kills and a block.