With second place of the South Coast conference at stake, the Lancers volleyball team traveled to play East Los Angeles College winners of three straight games.
Missing an importance piece of their defense, the Lancers were handed their first conference loss of the season in an upsetting four sets, 26-24, 25-18, 20-25 and 25-14.
The Lancers were without freshman middle blocker Kendra Logan who suffered a concussion earlier in the week during practice.
“I’m doing well now,” Logan said. “But it was frustrating to watch honestly. Partly because we were playing out of system and not playing to our fullest potential and we were all really uncomfortable with what was going on and you could see it on our faces.”
After dropping the first two sets by a combined nine points, the Lancers played cohesively in the third. The team picked up their defensive intensity and showed the Mounties (9-4, 3-1) why they’re ranked No. 21 in the latest state poll.
“I think we played ok considering we were without one of our starters,” said middle blocker Angela Banuelos. “I think we were all a little out of place because we didn’t have that comfort zone in the middle that we’re used to. The lack of communication hurt us and in the fourth set I just felt we gave up. We should have won.”
Although the loss slides the Lancers down to third in the South Coast Conference standings, the Lancers were able to get a season best 14 kills and eight digs from sophomore Briana Hilton. Nora To’omalatai led the Lancers with 15 kills, 10 digs and two serving aces.
“Because of Kendra’s absence we had to switch our rotation a little and I think we did fairly well despite the loss,” Hilton added. “Our passes and communication weren’t that great and it showed, we need to talk more and keep up our energy and intensity.”
Thula Parks and Angela Banuelos both added eight kills for the Lancers, but the absence of Logan proved to be too much as the Lancers only recorded one block the entire game.
“I don’t like to lose,” Parks said with a straight face. “Our passing was pretty bad against Mt. SAC. After winning the third set I think we expected to take it to five sets, but the slow start in the fourth made it hard for us to come back.
The Lancers travel to play East Los Angeles College tonight at 6 p.m.
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