On Feb. 16, Mt. SAC’s beach volleyball team hosted a doubleheader against the Bakersfield Renegades.
What is shaping out to be another dominant start to the season, SAC gentlemen’s swept both matches against their South Coast Conference opponents, 4-1, adding to their already impressive start. The team is on a better pace than their prior season’s pace jumping out to a current 7-0 record. SAC only dropped one match to the Orange Coast Pirates in their first seven games last season to start 6-1. They didn’t allow the Pirates to blemish their perfect start this season.
The old adage that the better teams win no matter how many times they play against each other applies to this matchup for SAC. Against the Bakersfield Renegades, SAC mirrored their performances almost identically.
In the first contest, SAC swept all four of their set match victories while their only lost set went to a decisive third set. The 1’s pair of sophomore Zyra Green (5) and freshman Candace Ceballos (11) handly beat sophomore Aubree Dees (17) and freshman Kamryn Briggs (9) in two sets: 21-10 and 21-12. The veteran 2’s pair of sophomores Liz Ortiz (21) and Capri Salmon (22) as they have throughout the start of the season notched the first set victories for SAC against sophomore Haley Tedrow (14) and freshman Stevie Yurisek (20) by double-digit margins of 21-8 and 21-10 respectively.
For the 3’s pair of freshmen Andrea Brewer (4) and Naara Ortega (12), their matchup with freshmen Kayla Stephen (6) and Bri Bowyer (11) was one of the closer contests as Brewer and Ortega managed a 21-14 and 21-19 victory for SAC. The 5’s freshmen pair of Freda Lei (13) and Eva Becerra (14) registered the highest margin of victory of the day as they crushed freshman Amber Dela Cruz (5) and Alexandra Watts (8) 21-6 and 21-12.
Unfortunately for the 4’s pair of sophomore Kyra Miller (10) and freshman Jillian de Leon (2), they squeezed out a 21-18 first-set victory against sophomores Kya Jones (2) and Monet Panther (21) but dropped the next two sets 16-21 and 11-15 respectively.
In the second contest of the doubleheader, Head Coach Samantha Neely switched the 1’s and 2’s pair matchups and kept the rest of the order intact. The Renegades would have almost an entire lineup shuffle.
Ortiz (21) and Salmon (22) would square off against the Renegades’s 1’s pair of Dees (17) and Briggs (9) and notched the first SAC set sweep of the doubleheader 21-11 and 21-15. Green (5) and Ceballos (11) took on the 3’s pair of Stephen (6) and Bowyer (11) and handily won in two sets 21-11 and 21-12.
Brewer (4) and Ortega (12) would match up with the 2’s pair of Tedrow (14) and Yurisek (20) in another tightly contested victory for the SAC 3’s pair eeking out a 21-18 and 21-17 set sweep. Lei (13) and Becerra (14) would face a slightly different pair in the 5’s matchup with Dela Cruz (5) subbing out for freshman Lucely Parra (10) and Watts (8). Although a different pair, the results were similar as Lei and Becerra would post the second largest margin of victory and sweep the sets 21-8 and 21-14 respectively.
For the 4’s pair matchup of Miller (10) and de Leon (2) and Jones (2) and Panther (21), because it was a tightly contested three-set contest, they wanted to run it back. But Miller (10) and de Leon (2) were unable to register a set win this time losing 24-26 and 11-21.
After the contests, Neely reflected on the team’s performance with high praise and enthusiasm. “It was a great day of beach volleyball. Playing Bakersfield twice gave our team the opportunity to practice making adjustments from match one to match two, as well as challenge our ability to adapt. Our focus on practice this week was being disciplined with the fundamentals, and across the board today, I think our team executed that focus with intentionality,” she said.
Neely also advised the team to take their treatment and recovery seriously after playing back-to-back matches without their normal break in between matches.
SAC will hit the road on Friday, Feb. 23 as they take on the Mt. San Jacinto Eagles and host Santa Barbara Vaqueros. Earlier this season, SAC defeated the Eagles 3-2 and will look to improve on their narrow victory. SAC will not host a home matchup until Friday, March 8 against the Rio Hondo Roadrunners and the Long Beach Vikings.
