The Lady Raiders had a hot start in their home opener last night, but fell short in the end to the Antelope Valley College Marauders. The Ladies started fast blasting Antelope Valley in the opening two sets, however the Marauders fought back hard and took sets three, four and five.

The Ladies took the first two sets 25-22 and 25-12 , but dropped the final three going 19-25, 21-25 and 13-15.

It was clear the same team did not take the court after the opening sets as the Lady Raiders looked simply deflated in the third set. The ladies battled hard in the final sets but in the end fell short.

“It was a tough loss, we really wanted this one. It was the first one at home” said Brueckner “It was tough, I gave it my all, we all did. We didn’t come out with the same energy as we did in the beginning, we kind of just laid low and we can’t afford to give up any easy points.”

You can never count the Lady Raiders out though. This team did not go down easy as they were relentless on the attack with six players having at least five kills. Melissa Brueckner led the offensive battle with a season high of 15 brutal kills.

“It’s just an example of when you exhale and don’t do a good job executing,” said Burkhart on the teams’s loss. “We just made a lot of errors. When you make that many errors you’re gonna lose.”

The Lady Raiders drop to an 0-1 start in the WSC Play.

The potential is clear to see for this Lady Raider team. All the hitters we’re closing on double digit kills, both setters had 20 assists, and the team blocked very well. Throw all that in with a handful of serving and digging errors and you will see last night’s harsh outcome.