Lorrie Reyes / Roundup
Pierce College’s women’s volleyball team dropped the last two games in dramatic fashion, both ending 24-26 in their home opener, resulting in a 0-3 game loss against fifth ranked Moorpark on Sept. 30 in the school’s North Gym.
Inaccuracy and nerves seemed to be evident as the Brahmas had a total of 33 errors in the 14-25, 24-26 and 24-26 losses to the Raiders.
“I’ve never seen that many errors,” said head coach Nabil Mardini “We’re not letting our instincts take over, we are settling and being passive.”
The Brahmas (4-10) saw their leads in the second and third games dwindle away with a combination of mental mistakes and strong play by the Raider’s (8-1) top sophomores Rachel Olinyk and Una Siljegovic.
“We are beating ourselves with our own errors,” said sophomore middle blocker Brooke McFerren, who also led the team with seven kills against Moorpark.
Moorpark came back from a 22-18 deficit during the third game with the help of middle blocker Olinyk’s consecutive points, a kill and an ace, bringing them back within two.
Pierce was down by five points most of game two, but rallied and took the lead late in the game but it wasn’t enough to win the tie breaker with the Raiders.
“We have lost four out of our last six games by two points, we are right there,” said Assistant Coach Brad Lyans, “They showed us why they are ranked No. 5 in the state.”
Game one started off with a long serve and ended with a small standoff during the last points for Pierce but couldn’t hold off against Moorpark’s ball placement by Olinyk and Siljegovic ending in a 14-25 loss.
“We are a very mental team,” said Pierce’s libero and defensive specialist Reyna Rochin. “We missed our very first serve of the game and we weren’t really able to pick ourselves up.”
Despite the disappointment in their loss, the Brahmas have to look ahead to their Western State Conference Southern division games which begin this Friday.
The Brahmas have won the past eight WSC titles in a row and need to perform well to make it to state playoffs.
“We see the bigger picture so we are starting from scratch,” said Lyans, “We are 0-0 right now in conference.”
Pierce’s game, scheduled for last Friday, against Ventura College was canceled due to too many games on the schedule.
A limit of 21 contests (a contest can either be multiple games played in one day as in tournaments or one game a day as in conference games) has been set by the state budget, according to Lyans.
Pierce College had 22 games on the schedule and was told they had to cancel either their game versus Moorpark or Ventura. The women’s volleyball team decided to cancel Ventura.
Although the canceled game counts as a loss for their overall record it will give Pierce some extra time to get ready for their conference opener against Canyons College Friday at 7p.m. in the North Gym.
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