Odessa College couldn't find the points it needed in tough spots Saturday afternoon against Midland College.

Those breakdowns let the Lady Chaparrals gain momentum in the most important spots and come back to win the game's last two sets for the victory.

Midland College defeated Odessa College 27-25, 22-25, 23-25, 25-18, 15-9 for the five-set win in Western Junior College Athletic Conference play at the OC Sports Center.

Sophomore middle blocker Bojana Bolozan led the Lady Wranglers with 12 kills, 5.5 blocks, an assist and five digs.

All season, the Lady Wranglers have been working together to mature on the court. After a few matches of limiting its mistakes, Odessa College's age caught up with it against its biggest rival. 

"I wanted us to come out and compete. We've been playing fairly consistent the past couple of games," Odessa College head coach Kristi Gray said. "We have our moments and unfortunately we had our moments again today and we had them in the wrong points in the game."

Midland College started the first set with a 6-1 lead and forced Gray to take her first timeout down six points at 10-4. The Lady Wranglers (18-12 overall, 5-3 WJCAC) battled back to tie the match for the first time at 18-18 and even took the lead late in the set at 22-20.

The Lady Chaps (25-3, 7-1) then landed four points in a row to draw set point and eventually put the first set away a few minutes later.

If Odessa College had found a way to stay ahead in the first frame, it could have finished the match with a straight-set victory as it won the second and third sets.

At the end of the third set, it took the Lady Wranglers six set points to put the Lady Chaps away after Midland College scored five straight points.

"We tend to dig ourselves in a deep hole," Gray said. "Sometimes we can come out of it … We just couldn't finish. We've got to get better at finishing.

"I think it's just a lack of focus. We, one, come out flat or two, we are up and we get complacent. We don't like to finish. We just got to be hungry and push even when were up."

After both teams played well in the beginning of the fourth set leading the match to be tied 14-14, the Lady Wranglers kept swinging right into the blocks of the Lady Chaps and gave up eight straight points.

That led Midland College to tie the match at two sets a piece, resulting in a fifth, and final, set.

The Lady Chaps quickly jumped out in front of the last set by taking the first six points and eventually clinched the match 15-9.

"Talent-wise, I feel that we are very good but we make a lot of young mistakes," Gray said. "The past couple games, I felt like we've done better with that, but today it showed again."

The loss means that Odessa College will enter the Region V Tournament as the hosts with no better than the No. 3 seed behind Midland College and New Mexico Military Institute — which is undefeated in WJCAC play.

The Lady Wranglers play their final regular season home match at 7 p.m. Wednesday against Clarendon College before traveling to face NMMI on Saturday in the regular-season finale.

A win Wednesday would all but lock Odessa College into the No. 3 seed. Gray knows however that her team will more than likely have to go through Midland College or NMMI — if not both — to lift a second straight region title.

"We can play at that level," Gray said. "I fully believe that we can. We just have to be consistent with it. We have moments of greatness and then we have moments of being young and we got to get it figured out in two weeks."

Article/photo by Eric Blum OA