Mt. SAC women’s beach volleyball extended their 5 game winning streak after defeating Rio Hondo and Cerritos in their double header night game on Friday, March 26, with final team scores being 4-1 and 3-2.
SAC started the match with a dominant win of 4-1 against the Rio Hondo Roadrunners. The 1s pair sophomore, Emma Carson (12) and sophomore Eva Fisher (15) won the first two sets, the second set being a dominating score of 21-9. The 2s pair, freshman Kayla Staveley (10) and freshman Morgan Wilson (14) started off with a loss of 19-21 and were not able to come back in the second set.
The 3s pair, sophomore Jeanie Rhodes (23) and freshman Yaretzi Silva (4) swept both sets against Rio Hondo marking SAC’s team score 2-1. The 4s pair, sophomore Jasmyn Stampley (2) and freshman Bella Fairley (3) also swept both sets against Rio Hondo adding to the team score. Rio Hondo failed to provide a 5s pair to compete against sophomore Isabella Ross (11) and freshman Veronica Estrada (1) so, SAC won on a forfeit, making the final score for this match 4-1.
After SAC’s first match, head coach Samantha Neely says part of her coaching is reminding the players to “stay hungry” while they are playing.
“In our program we love being competitive, we love being hungry to win,” Neely said. “Sometimes we just need that little reminder to kind of reset mentally and be able to have that eye on the prize at the end. I think they did a good job of resetting and finding that hunger again.”
When the second match started with the 1s pair, Carson (12) and Fisher (15) lost both sets against Cerritos, but kept up a good fight with both scores only behind by 2 points. SAC was able to get back on the board with 2s pair, Staveley (10) and Silva (4) coming back during this match and winning both of their sets.
Fairley (3) and Stampley (2), the 3s pair, started off the match with losing 13-21. They then took Cerritos off the board by winning the next two sets, with both sets being won by more than 5 points each. This pair took the crowd by storm as their pair broke the team score tie against Cerritos making it 2-1.
The pair each said their partnership is what makes them both able to succeed on the sand.
“ … what’s been working is just shaking off [and] making sure you’re not holding your partner against anything … as soon as you keep going and fighting everything will be okay and you just have to keep that motivation within each other and trust within each other … that’s really what’s been helping,” Fairley said.
“We both found our groove and were able to get each other good sets, we had good swings,” Stampley said.
The 4s set played by sophomore Mayah Tiscareno (20) and Rhodes (23) would mark the last team point played by Mt. SAC. The pair won both sets in the match with their set scores being 21-10 and 21-9. The 5s pairs, Estrada (1) and Ross (11) kept the crowd on their feet with the first two sets being tied and ending on a loss of 11-15 making the final team score 3-2 for Mt. SAC.
The next home game for Mt. SAC will be on Friday, April 3 at 10 a.m. against Long Beach which will also be sophomore night honoring the second year volleyball players.
