The Moorpark College Raiders may have lost the first set of their Wednesday night match against the Golden West College men’s volleyball team, but they quickly turned around their act to win the next three sets in a row.

In the first set, Moorpark was able to hang around for the most part, as they had the score tied at 23-23. However, Golden West proved to be too much for Moorpark as they went on to lose the set 30-26.

Despite losing the first set, Moorpark’s head coach Steve Burkhart believed in his team.

“We focused on the fact that we just did not play well in that first set and I know we’re a better team than that,” Burkhart said.

Despite the poor first set of the night, Moorpark dominated the rest of the evening.

“Getting out to a 5-0 lead really was kind of the kick start of us playing a little bit better,” Burkhart said.

Moorpark’s biggest lead of the whole match was 11, when they had Golden West with their backs up against the wall at set point with a score of 29-18. However, Golden West managed a side out and one more point before Moorpark closed out the set at 30-20.

Moorpark wasted no time in the third set as they maintained their dominance and jumped out to an 11-4 lead. With the score 14-8, the Raiders were helped along by two big blocks from Christopher Trauger and again with the score 24-16.

“Blocking was a big part of this game,” said Moorpark middle blocker Sean Martin. “We spend at least half an hour in practice on blocking every day. It seems to work in practice, so it works in the game.”

The Raiders advance to 6-0 on the season with the victory, however, Burkhart is staying cautiously optimistic.

“These are all out of conference games and our conference is just ridiculously good,” Burkhart said. “We know that even though it’s nice, we still have a lot of work to do.”