Anna Rupertova said it was probably her team's best match of the season.

It would've been hard for the sophomore outside hitter to think of a better performance by the Lady Wranglers this season — or to a time they felt anything better than the elation in Saturday's victory.

Indeed, it doesn't really get much better than that.

The Odessa College volleyball team clinched a regular-season WJCAC championship and capped a sweet Sophomore Day in by downing New Mexico Military Institute 25-14, 28-26, 25-22 in the Lady Wranglers' home finale Saturday in the OC Sports Center.

With the win, Odessa College captured an outright regular-season conference championship, and earned No. 1 seeding for the NJCAA Region V Tournament set for next weekend.

The regional tournament winner next week will earn a berth at the NJCAA National Championship Tournament later in November.

"This is a great feeling," Rupertova said. "We won conference. That was our goal.

"Now we have our next goal, to go to nationals."

Rupertova put down a team-best 12 kills in the Lady Wranglers' win Saturday, while Monica Muskat, Bojana Bolozan and Alison Fuata also dropped six each. Fuata also picked up a team-high 21 digs in the sweep.

"I think we did amazing, especially playing a team like NMMI," Fuata said. "NMMI's a really good team, and to finish that in three sets is quite an accomplishment for us, I'd say."

Odessa College cruised to take the first set, but faced trouble in the tightly contested second.

When the Lady Wranglers scored to take a 23-21 lead and forced NMMI to take a timeout, it seemed OC was in position to close out the set, but the visitors then rallied for three straight points out of the timeout to go up 24-23.

Rupertova saved the set on NMMI's match point, when her off-speed attack hit in the far corner of the court to tie it back up at 24-24.

After another NMMI point, Makenzie Rainone fired down a kill to tie it 25-25, and then after another NMMI score, Rupertova's off-speed tip hit the center of the NMMI floor to make it 26-26.

NMMI then gave up a point on an attacking error, and that's when Bolozan's block won the second set 28-26.

The third set was tied 20-20 before OC rallied for three straight points, including a Bolozan block right before an NMMI mishit which made put the Lady Wranglers up 23-20. Odessa College matched stride with NMMI from there, exchanging points until a NMMI attacking error gave Odessa College the third set, and a conference title.

"I'm super ecstatic right now," Odessa College head coach Kristi Gray said after the victory. "Winning conference my first year as head coach, and on Sophomore Day — there's a lot of emotions I have right now."

The Lady Wranglers concluded the regular season with a 25-5 overall record, and a 9-1 record in WJCAC play. NMMI finished 7-3 in conference, in a tie for second along with Midland College.

Odessa College's only conference loss this season came at rival Midland College last week on Oct. 22, but the Lady Wranglers bounced back this week, sweeping Clarendon College on Wednesday before Saturday's sweep to seal the regular-season championship.

"They're excited to go into the region tournament off of this win," Gray said. "We needed it after our loss against Midland. That was a tough loss for us. We didn't play well. We needed a big win going into (the regional tournament) — and what a better day than Sophomore Day to do it on; our last home game."

Article by Justin Lee OA.