By Eduardo Miranda, The Daily Independent
The Cerro Coso volleyball team opened Inland Empire Athletic Conference hosting Chaffey. The Coyotes entered the match coming off a win over Los Angeles City College but also went into the match shorthanded. They gave the Panthers a hard-fought battle but fell in four sets 14-25, 26-28, 25-22, and 13-25.
Coyotes head coach Armando Gamez said on the loss to Chaffey and playing shorthanded, "it showed what we need to work on like our serving. We lost a lot of points on our serving, so that is one focus that we need to work on.
"I think it's an eye-opener to see that we can do it. We did it once, we should be able to do it three times. It's all about looking at what made us successful in that one set, and trying to replicate that over and over and over."
The Coyotes offense finished with 26 kills led by Lexi Higer with 10, while Brooke Murphy had eight and Ariel Meech had six. They had 23 assists with Abby Wuestenhoefer leading the team with 22 and Emma Gonzalez had one. In serving, the Coyotes finished with nine aces with Karla Ortiz leading the team with three and Murphy had two.
The Cerro Coso defense finished with 79 digs with Ortiz finishing with 21, while Imani Parker had 18 and Meech had 14. They had four solo blocks with Higer having two. But the Coyotes finished with 37 total errors on offense and defense.
For many on the roster and Gamez, this was the first Inland Empire Conference match, and he said they need to play with the same confidence they show in practice. He believes if they execute better and continue to get better at practice they can challenge and win conference matches, but against Chaffey that did not happen.
In the first set, the Coyotes had seven kills on 32 attempts but finished with four errors. The second set, the home team had nine kills on 38 attempts but had six errors. In the third set, Cerro Coso had eight kills on 39 attempts with six errors. In the final set, Cerro Coso finished with two kills on 33 attempts with two errors.
After dropping the first set, the Coyotes came close to winning the second set. They led 24-22, but could not find the set winner as Chaffey scored the next two points to tie the set, 24-24. Cerro Coso scored to take a 25-24 lead, but hit the net on its serve attempt. Both teams traded points with the set tied at 26-26, and the Panthers scored the next two points to steal the set and take a 2-0 lead.
In the third set, Cerro Coso fell behind 5-3 but took a 9-6 lead behind Ortiz's serving. During her serve, Cerro Coso was able to set up its offense for Higer and Meech to score kills. The Coyotes and Panthers traded points leading to a 13-10 lead after a big block from Higer. Murphy then went up to serve and she extended the lead to 16-12. She hit an ace and had a kill and block from Higer, giving the home team momentum. Wuestenhoefer continued to extend the home team's lead to 19-13 with her serving. The Coyotes finished the set with strong defensive play as the back line was able to reach hit attempts and control the serves for a 25-22 set win.
In the fourth set, the Coyotes trailed 10-6 after a kill from Murphy but the visitors went on a run, taking a 15-6 lead. The Coyotes struggled to score even after making great saves on Chaffey kill attempts, but the Panthers outscored the home team 10-6 to close the set and win the match.
Cerro Coso (3-7, 0-1) continues conference play hosting Desert on Wednesday at 5 p.m.