Julian Reyes
If the Pierce Woman’s Volleyball team needed to be tested before the beginning of playoffs, then College of the Canyons gave them one in a playoff type atmosphere match on Friday night at the south gym.
The Brahmas perfect 9-0 WSC South Conference record was in jeopardy against a tough as nails Cougar defense, who showed Pierce that they were not afraid of their hard outside hitters.
Those easy kills that the Brahmas usually get against lesser teams was not going to happen against the Cougars. COC was able to repel the hard hits and send them back for line drives.
“They were setting up a black defense in which they send out their blockers out early,” said Sam Potter. “So, there was going to be two blockers on me, no matter what.”
On this night, no point came easy for the Brahmas, which turned to be as evenly matched game, resulting in a fifth game that the Brahmas won, 15-13.
It was a repeat of an earlier match in the season where the Cougars took the Brahmas to five on Oct. 12 at Canyons, resulting in a Pierce win.
However, the hard hits eventually took their toll on the Cougars. Sarah Martin continued her stellar season with another great match.
Head coach of the Cougars, Lisa Hooper, praised the outside hitter. “Sarah Martin is a phenomenal hitter and she certainly did her job,” said Hooper. “I think we did enough to frustrate the rest of the girls and it made it difficult for them to score points.”
At one point the Brahmas were leading 19-12 in the third game and it looked like they were on there way to another win, but the Cougars showed no wear of fatigue and they took game three by the score of 25-23.
Cassandra De la Cruz talked about game three. “It was miss communication and just the errors getting into our heads,” said De la Cruz.
Head Coach Nabil Mardini gave credit to the Cougar defense, while sharing some of the blame on the errors. “They did a good job against us, they played good defense,” said Mardini. “They put a lot of pressure on us behind the service line, I think for the first time this year.”
By the time the decisive game five came, both teams seemed at edge, which caused turnovers and errors.
Coach Hooper saw some nerves come into play in game five.
“We got, scared. Honestly, we didn’t feel any pressure until the end of the match and then we just couldn’t overcome our nerves,” said Hooper.
Coach Mardini felt the same about his team.
“We made 15 errors in game one; you kind of shot yourself in the foot when you make that many,” said Mardini, “We just seemed to panic, we played frantic today.”
Both teams are ranked respectively at the top of the conference with Pierce eyeing State as their goal.
Pierce has four games remaining until the first round of regionals. If Pierce can keep the pace, then they would be awarded home court throughout the playoffs.
The Brahmas next match will be at Glendale College on Tuesday Nov. 9 at 7 p.m.