The Moorpark College Raiders lost their second straight game on Wednesday night after being swept by the Santa Barbara City College Vaqueros 0-3. The Raiders are 6-2 overall and 1-1 in conference, while the Vaqueros now have a 4-2 overall record and won their first conference game.
Moorpark’s freshman setter Nathan Mar admitted that the Raiders did not mentally prepare themselves.
“We went into (the game) thinking it was going to be easy. We weren’t taking it as seriously as we should’ve been,” Mar expressed.
In the first set, the Raiders were the dominant team up by five, but the Vaqueros came back with authority and won 25-27. The first set proved to be the Raiders best of the night, following in the next two sets the Raiders appeared to be distracted after many missed serves and hitting errors. Points were easily taken by the Vaqueros.
In set two, the final score was left at 19-25 and the third set finished 20-25 in favor of the Vaqueros. Two impressive players from the Vaqueros starting lineup were sophomore outside hitters Calvin Sanborn and Trent Lingruen. Sanborn finished the game with 12 kills and four digs while Lingruen earned himself nine kills and four digs.
Sophomore outside hitter Austin McIntyre spoke on the team’s performance.
“We did not pass the ball, our first contact was just bad all match. We didn’t give ourselves a chance to beat them and we couldn’t execute our game plan,” McIntyre stated.
Though the Raiders lost the game, there were a few players that gave it their all. Sophomore outside hitter Ryan Horan was able to get 10 kills, the most from any Moorpark player. Freshman outside hitter Jake Cecena also scored seven kills and three digs.
Freshman outside hitter Ray Parra-Lopez, a big asset to the team, was unable to play due to a shoulder injury. Parra-Lopez’s return is still undecided, according to Head Coach Aaron Hedland.
“We don’t know a timetable on Ray yet, it could be a season-ender or a one-week thing. We still have to wait and find out,” Hedland said.
The Raiders could have been more competitive, evident through their loss last week against Irvine Valley in which the game lasted to the fifth set.
Hedland also gave his thoughts on his team and the difficult opponent.
“Tough opponent, we have to give a lot of credit to Santa Barbara. They brought a lot of big serves and a lot of big hitters. After we lost in the first set we did not respond,” Hedland said.
The Moorpark Raiders upcoming game will be against the 7-1 defending state champions, the Long Beach City College Vikings, on Feb. 28 in Long Beach at 6 p.m. The Raiders will then return home to face-off against El Camino College on Mar. 4 at 6 p.m.
