Warriors Sweep Away an Entire Week

By Brandon Petersen

Somebody toss a bucket of water on the Westcliff women's volleyball team. 

The Warriors are on fire. 

Saturday at Jordan Lawley Center, in front a standing-room-only packed house, Westcliff completed an immaculate week of volleyball, finishing its fourth sweep in as many days, 3-0, over visiting UC Merced. 

In their six wins this season, the Warriors have only dropped a single game. 

Two of their three losses went five, and the other was headed to five until Vanguard made an impressive comeback.

Translation: Westcliff is good. 

Very good. 

Saturday's match at JLaw was a good old-fashioned shellacking. Westcliff trailed the Bobcats only once all day, and completely dominated each of three games, 25-13, 25-11, 25-19.

"I think we have improved our team culture," Fiona Moesching said. "I love being on the court, and all the support from the sideline makes us jump even higher — I love that." 

Moesching finished Saturday with eight stinging kills, trailing team-leader Maddie Shepston by four. Shepston also had a fantastic day on defense, collecting seven digs, a couple of the extremely-challenging variety. 

Speaking of defense, Ava Himstreet was lights out, leading the team with 10 digs, again, many off very hard-hit balls. 

The Warriors played with great purpose and energy, communicating well and sending a resounding message to one of the Cal Pac's perennial stalwarts. 

"In the past couple weeks we have worked on our culture and communication,"Moesching said. "We were able to do really well today, and I loved it."

Moesching says it's Westcliff's excellent on-court communication that has made the difference during the recent winning streak.

"We communicate," she said. "Literally for every single ball, and I love that."

Mia Scheepens (two kills, four digs) and Abbey Beckwith (two kills), alongside Brooke Scheidle, controlled the action at net, while Gabrielle Simms and Phoebe Sebby chipped in consistently from the service stripe. 

It was an impressive team performance, Westcliff's third-straight to kick off Cal Pac play. 

Up next, the Warriors (6-3, 3-0) travel to Arizona for a meeting with Benedictine Mesa, Thursday at 6 p.m.