What Happened? The Westcliff women's volleyball team started an important conference road trip where they will play three games in three days. On Thursday, they faced off against UC Merced where they would try to bounce back from their previous loss, last week against Park-Gilbert.
The Warriors landed the early blow off of a service error by UC Merced to take the first set, 25-18.
The second set was a back and forth battle as neither team could pull ahead, and they kept within one point of each other. At 17-17 Fiona Moesching was able to get a crucial kill with the assist from Leonor Chambel. The Warriors would win the next four points in a row to pull ahead late in the second set. But UC Merced wasn't done as they came back to win four of the next five points to make it a close match once again. UC Merced would not let themselves go down two sets as they battled their way to tie it up one set a piece, 27-29.
The Warriors regrouped and came out in the third set with lots of force and took a big lead early on. They were able to hold on to the big lead and with a kill from Moesching and an assist from Michelle Do, won the third set, 25-17.
The fourth set was usual business for the Warriors as they were able to carry the momentum and comfortably take the win, 25-13.
Top Performers
Mia Scheepens - 7 Kills and 8 Digs
Lina Ellila - 15 Assists and 5 Digs
Fiona Moesching - 13 Kills and 4 Digs
Leonor Chambel - 19 Digs
Michelle Do - 21 Assists and 16 Digs
Coaches' Notes
Head Coach Kenny Ma
"Today was a bit of a roller coaster but it was a great test for us to see the depth of our roster as we played without our two impact players. I am glad that we were able to make some changes and completely flip the momentum of the game after dropping the second set.
"Half of it was strategic, we made some defensive changes along with serve receive prep changes. The other half was our mental game.
"Leonor Chambel stepped up as libero today and was very consistent for our team on the serve receive and defensive line. Another player that stood out was Gabrielle Simms. She was very consistent with her aggressive serving and had opportunities to step up as a defensive specialist."
What's Next? Westcliff will continue their road trip on Friday against Simpson. Play will start at 7pm.
