Riverside Falters in Five at Home

It has been a tough streak for the Riverside City College women's volleyball team since winning their first Orange Empire Conference (OEC) match in late September. Since then, the Tigers have not won a single set and have succumbed to three straight match sweeps. They battled to five sets with the Golden West College Rustlers Wednesday night on home hardwood, but inconsistent play handed them their fourth-consecutive defeat.

Both teams traded sets entering into the final set at 25-22, 23-25, 25-17, 18-25. The fifth set was a back and forth affair, but a 6-3 run by the Rustlers at the end of the set led to a 15-10 match clinching win.

Despite the loss, Riverside earned their first set win since September 28 and their first set win at home since September 14.

Both teams played well throughout the entire game with neither side grossing a negative hitting percentage. Riverside's strongest set was in the third with a .351 kill percentage and an eight-point difference in spread.

Sophomore Maggie Aburto and freshman Nina Peay led the offensive brigade by each recording 12 kills each. Aburto came on strong to start the match, while Peay's late match play kept the Tigers within striking distance. Additionally, Aburto recorded 14 digs, which tied for the team lead with sophomore Hoku Goday. Goday started her third-straight contest at libero and made it count.

"During the game, you can see that we have been working towards being more confident in our game play, but we really thought we were going to win tonight," said Aburto after the tough loss. 

Freshman Paris Toaetolu had another strong performance highlighted by eight kills and six total blocks. Peay followed with four blocks, while freshman Esmeralda Aguilar and freshman Audrey Elias each rose up for two stuffs each.

Elias recorded a career-high 42 assists in her first five-set match of her career. It is the second time this season she has surpassed the 40-assist mark and the seventh time she has tallied 30 or more assists. She ranks 16^th in the state with 435 total assists and 8.21 assists-per-set.

Aguilar set a new career-high with six kills and was one block shy of her career-high mark of five.