Marion Kimble
The Pierce College women’s volleyball team beat out the Santa Monica College Corsairs Friday in their first Western State Conference South Division game of the season, 3 games to 0. Pierce roughed up Santa Monica in the first game, taking an early lead with the momentum of a freight train. Halfway through the first game, Santa Monica found the fight within and scored just enough to close with a respectable ending score: 30 to 22 in favor of Pierce. The second game wasn’t as favorable to Pierce at the start, as Santa Monica played hard. Each team struggled in a point-to-point race, where Santa Monica took a small lead early on. After 15 minutes of strife, Pierce finally regained the momentum of the first game, making short work of the Corsairs. The second game ended 30 to 14. In the final game, the Brahmas continued to rage. The Corsairs tried to saddle up, but were quickly tossed aside. Despite Pierce’s performance, they had trouble maintaining a ten-point lead midgame, but as time wore on the end was clear. Pierce pillaged the third game from the Corsairs, 30 to 18.Corsair Coach Kerri Eich didn’t seem too surprised. “They had a strong offense and kept a lot of pressure on the outside,” she said.Outside hitter Janet Alvarado lead the attack with 11 kills, followed by Team Captain Ashley Lugo-Brown who had nine kills. Sandra Posada, libero, and Brittany Sousa, defensive specialist, protected the rear with 11 digs each.Still, Lugo-Brown thinks the Brahmas can do better.”We always have room for improvement,” she said. “[Santa Monica] played with lots of heart and enthusiasm. They have a really good defense.”Nabil Mardini is pleased with the effort put out by the team so far.”The girls did well. The bench did well,” he said. “They took care of the ball, served tough.””[Santa Monica] had a hard time passing,” Mardini continued. “They defiantly won the serve battle. They were better than last year, we just had fewer errors.”