LAKEWOOD, CO- The Cougars hosted their first game of the season at the CCU Event Center as they took on Fort Lewis on Friday. Led by a ba;anced offensive attack and quality defense, CCU played their way to a sweep of the Skyhawks in front of a rowdy home crowd.
The first set was very evenly played throughout as each team tried to find its rhythm. Connelly Kilgore and Renee Phillips got the offense rolling with consecutive kills, and Phillips later put her team ahead 11-9 with a slam from the middle. A four-point run at 15-15 put the Cougars in control, but the Skyhawks showed a lot of fight late to make it 20-19. Libby Goodman and Phillips put an end to the set as they took over, as the final five points scored by CCU came from the pair on kills for a 25-20 set win.
Set two began tightly contested and stayed that way the entire time. Goodman and Kilgore notched kills to push their team ahead 5-3 early, and later a six-point run led by a pair of Phillips kills sent them ahead 12-7. Fort Lewis rallied back with a run of their own to take a 13-12 lead as the teams battled towards crunch time in the set. A heads up play from Jessamyn Rose led to a kill from the libero as CCU went up 18-15. The Cougars buckled down to close the set out, finished by a kill from Izzy Jones to claim the set 25-21.
Intent on closing the match out in three sets, the Cougars came out strong with three straight points to start set three. Alli Douglass provided a spark with back-to-back kills to put her squad ahead 8-5. She then tallied consecutive aces for an 11-8 advantage as she left her mark on the set. A mini run midway through the set made it 15-10 Cougars, and later the lead grew to 22-17 on another Douglass ace. Goodman slammed another home, and CCU closed out their first RMAC sweep of the season with a 25-19 final set victory.
Goodman and Phillips led the offensive effort with 12 and 11 kills respectively. Jones dished out 37 assists, while Rose tallied 12 digs. At the net, Phillips dominated with six blocks while Goodman had three.
The Cougars will be back at it again tomorrow night as they take on Western Colorado at 5 p.m. MST at the CCU Event Center.
