On Wednesday, Sept. 11, the Moorpark women’s volleyball team looked to defend their home court as they took on Cerritos College. The match ended as the Raiders emerged victorious, winning 3-1. This was Moorpark’s second win in a row and boosted their record on the season to 6-2.
As soon as fans were seated and the starting lineups were announced, the Raiders jumped out to an early 8-3 lead. The fast-starting Raiders lead would blossom to a score of 19-8. Cerritos rallied however, and put together a late run to cut the deficit to five but the Raiders put it away late and won the set 25-18.
The Raiders hoped to ride the momentum of the first set, but the second set wouldn’t be anything like the first. After the first 10 points, Moorpark would find themselves trailing 7-3. 10 more points later, the Raiders would cut the deficit to 11-9 in favor of the visiting Falcons.
Late in the set, the home team would take the lead off an ace from Prior Borick. Despite the late back and forth, Moorpark would concede the second set 23-25.
Head Coach Adam Black discussed how the team regrouped after dropping the set.
“I thought they did a really great job,” Black said. “Grace [Hazelton] did a really great job of just rallying everyone. [She] was pretty instrumental in keeping our heads on straight.”
Going into the third set, the Raiders had learned from their mistakes. The Moorpark women took the third set with a tight score of 25-23. Grace Hazelton made her presence known on both offense and defense. The standout sophomore from El Camino Charter High School shone a light on the team’s mentality after dropping a set.
“We work a lot on releasing the last play [and] focusing on the next one,” Hazelton said. “Even though we lost, the score is zero-zero so we have a chance to come back and finish it.”
The Raiders would come out into the fourth set with the same energy they ended the third with. Moorpark would go up 3-2 early and wouldn’t trail at any point in this final set, working their largest lead up to 20-12. The Cerritos Falcons did not blink. In a desperate attempt to come back, they would cut the lead down to one point late in the set. The scoreboard read 20-19.
Despite the Falcons’ valiant effort, the Raiders would go on to close out set three with a score of 25-20, clinching the 3rd winning set.
No game is ever a free win. Every win is earned and fought for and tonight these girls earned this win. Assistant Coach Rodrick was asked about how the team prepares for games like this one.
“We do a lot of team preparation on what we want to focus on,” Rodrick said. “Then we do some prep work on scouting the other teams and their tendencies and what they like to do.”
The Raiders sure did their homework before this game and capitalized on their opponents’ mistakes whenever they could.
Moorpark’s sixth win of the young season did not come easy, but the outlook of the season could not be much better. Following their victory over Cerritos, the Moorpark women went on to beat El Camino and Miracosta with final scores of 3-1 and 3-0, respectively.
Boasting an 8-2 record, the Raiders traveled to College of the Canyons on Friday, Sept. 20 to take on their Western State Conference rivals. The Raiders dominated their opponents, winning the match with a score of 3-1 and establishing a five-game winning streak.
The Raiders will move forward to take on Santa Monica City College on Wednesday, Sept. 25, in hopes of keeping their momentum going.
