Santa Barbara City College showed up in Woodland Hills, Calif. on Friday Nov. 1 to catch Pierce College in the conference standings.
Pierce was holding onto a 7-0 record in conference before Santa Barbara defeated the team 3-1 giving the Brahmas its first loss in the last 11 games.
Santa Barbara is now tied with Pierce in conference play but has the better overall record at 13-7 compared to Pierce’s 14-10 record.
The win marked a 1-1 split in the season series, Pierce had previously beat the Vaqueros in Santa Barbara 3-1.
Santa Barbara came out strong winning the first set decisively by a 25-12 score to put the momentum of the game in their favor.
The Brahmas showed its grit, grinding out a 25-22 victory to split the first two sets, but Santa Barbara was more than Pierce could handle as the Vaqueros won the next two sets by scores: 25-21 and 25-12.
Santa Barbara showed itself to be a model of consistency this night against Pierce, posting a .311 kill percentage compared to .070 by Pierce.
Santa Barbara also had 15 errors through the game while Pierce tallied 34 on the night according to cccaastats.org.
Freshman middle blocker Kristy Kearney led Santa Barbra offensively, driving in 16 kills for the night while Sophomore right side hitter Jenna Anderson had 17 digs.
Pierce head coach Nabil Mardini said that Santa Barbara had flipped the script on his team out serving Pierce.
“We didn’t perform well,” Mardini said.
Pierce will be looking to bounce back from this loss as the team prepares for its next match at Ventura College on Wednesday Nov. 6 with playoffs coming in the next few weeks.
