City College women’s volleyball extended its winning streak to seven games, Sept. 18 after defeating both De Anza College and Shasta College in three sets during a Quad event in the North Gym.
The Panthers first win of the day came somewhat easily against De Anza College, as they outscored their opponent 75-43 in three sets. However, like their previous two games, the Panthers had a little trouble closing out the match in the third.
“The third set is almost like our nemesis at this point,” said Panthers head coach Laurie Nash. “It’s just making sure that we’re coming at them stronger and not letting up, and I just think we’re still learning to be okay with taking over a team in three sets.”
After some early back-and-forth in the third set, and De Anza maintaining a steady lead throughout, the Panthers took over, eventually winning, 25-17.
Panthers’ sophomore middle hitter Madyson Taylor, the team leader in points this season with 102, credits a change in the lineup this week as a driving force in the win.
“Today, the lineup got mixed up, and it was good,” said Taylor. “We were more positive about it, and we didn’t get lackadaisical or comfortable. We stayed on our toes and stayed competitive and played like we had to win it.”
Since the season is still early — only 10 games into a 27 game season — Nash said she is switching things up to find out who’s ready right now, and who still needs time to develop. The lineup from the first match seemed to have worked well enough, because Nash went with a similar one with only one adjustment.
Sophomore Katie Haley, one of the team’s top players this season, started in place of sophomore middle hitter Raven Balafoutis in the second match. Balafoutis rolled her left ankle after she came down from blocking the ball at the net.
The win in the match against the Shasta College Knights was a little harder to come by for the Panthers. In the first set, the two teams battled toe-to-toe, with City College edging out the Knights 26-24.
As the match continued, the Panthers became more dominant, defeating the Knights 25-21 in the second set and 25-18 in the third.
Reagan Bradley led the team in kills (21) and points (27) on the day, and Kassidy Rauh added 47 assists to her team-leading assist count, bringing it to 276 so far on the season.
The Panthers don’t play their next match until Sept. 25, which, according to Nash, gives the team of nine freshman and six sophomores plenty of time to work on getting things together for conference matches beginning Sept. 30.
“We’ve got a pretty young team who are playing at a higher level than they’ve ever played at, and I don’t think that they’ve ever been in these situations,” said Nash. “It’s coming out guns blazing, handling the ball in the first pass and the serve and protecting what you’ve earned.”
For more stats and information about Panther volleyball, visit http://sccpanthers.losrios.edu/sports/wvball/index
