Posted: Aug 31, 2023
By Francisco Claudio
It wasn't the happy ending that the Westcliff women's volleyball team would have liked against visiting Santa Barbara City College, but there were many lessons learned.
The Warriors fought hard in every set and made late comebacks but still fell in three 25-20, 25-21, 27-25.
"There was a lot of anticipation for the match," said head coach Andrew Cole. "If you look at the numbers there were four serve errors and three net errors, so that's seven points you give to the team which were in our control.
"From that standpoint, we came and created a competitive match provided the fact that they had a lot of extra energy and tried to stay steady. Overall a good rebound from that first set when we were a little out of control."
During the first set, both teams were trading points with no one having more than a two-point lead for the majority.
Late in the first set the Warriors won four of five points and were only down one point, 21-20.
But SBCC made no mistakes from that point on and took the first set.
After losing the second set too, Westcliff came out determined to fight with everything in the third and were up 15-8 at one point.
SBCC clawed its way back throughout the set and had a match point at 24-23.
Abbey Beckwith came in clutch with two kills late in the third set to save the match points.
Both kills were perfectly assisted by Ava Himstreet.
But after a service error from the Warriors, SBCC was able to convert on the third match point.
"I was proud of them," Cole said. "We have a team of eight on the floor and across the net was a team of 26.
"So they didn't necessarily have a lot of support. They're going to have to look within themselves."
Serena Comer had a team-high nine kills and nine digs.
Ava Himstreet had 20 assists and 10 digs.
"We'll get tougher and stronger as the season goes on because you'll start to trust yourself more when you're relying on yourself to make those corrections," Cole said.
Westcliff will make a short drive over to Vanguard University on Thursday, August 31st, with a start time of 7:15PM.
