Cowgirls ready for another tourney

Richard Anderson photo
Cowgirl senior libero Jessica Kagarise serves last week against Rutgers. The Cowgirls, 2-1, host their second straight tournament this weekend with the UniWyo Cowgirl Invite.

By Richard Anderson
Wyoming Sports.org

It was a learning experience for the young Wyoming volleyball team last week when the Cowgirls opened the season 2-1 in their own UniWyo Cowgirl Classic.

They’ll look to take that education a step further when they stay home again this weekend with the UniWyo Cowgirl Invite.

The Cowgirls will open the two-day, three-match tournament at 10 a.m. on Friday when they host Montana State. Wyoming also faces North Dakota Friday at 7 p.m. and Fresno State Saturday at 7 p.m.

I think last week was the beginning and we had a lot of nerves,” Yerty said. “I think, overall, we played very well. We would have liked to seen a different outcome against Idaho State, but our newcomers played very well throughout the entire tournament.”

Starting the season at home for two straight weeks is important for the Cowgirls in a couple of different reasons, second-year head coach Carrie Yerty said.

“One, so that we could establish a start of school for our kids; we wanted them to feel academically sound before we hit the road,” Yerty said. “We also wanted them to get the jitters out at home in front of their own fans, on their home court. We wanted to be able to selectively schedule teams we can build from week to week and we’ll definitely do that.”

Two things that Yerty said she learned from last week was that the Cowgirls need to be better at terminating on the double block and they need to continue to be consistent in their serve receive. They worked on both considerably this week in practice.

“Overall, I thought we served pretty tough and our blocking was pretty decent,” she said. “I’m just looking forward to three new teams and go at it again.”

Montana State is 0-3 coming in to the weekend and is led by Taylar Barney, who is averaging 2.10 kills and 1.50 digs per set. MSU returns four starters and nine letterwinners on a team that went 3-23 overall and 0-16 in the Big Sky Conference a year ago.

UND is 4-0 overall and is paced by Devin Trefz, who is averaging 3.36 kills and 1.93 digs per set. The Fighting Sioux return all six starters and 10 letterwinners to a team that went 24-8 overall.

Fresno State is 2-1 and is led by Lacey Gera, who is averaging 3.0 kills and 1.30 digs per set. Fresno State returns six starters and 10 letterwinners to a team that went 7-20 overall and 3-13 in the Western Athletic Conference a year ago.

“Fresno is tough. They have a lot of offensive weapons,” Yerty said. “Montana State is very similar to us; they have a new coaching staff and new players. North Dakota is 4-0, so we have some teams that are going to be competitive and they will have more offensive weapons that we saw last week. We’re going to have to play better than we did last weekend.”

The Cowgirls are currently led by freshman outside hitter Jodi Purdy at 3.18 kills a game. She is followed Camille Coffman and Lauren Whitney, who are each adding 2.0 kills per set, while Coffman is averaging 1.27 blocks per set. As a team, the Cowgirls are averaging 11.82 kills 13.36 digs and 11.36 assists per set.