By Gustavo Buenrostro
Volleyball won in a five-set match against California Lutheran University’s junior varsity squad 3-2 last Wednesday.
“I feel the team executed a B- performance. There were things we worked on in practice that was not done well, but the team was very effective. We have a skilled team, very sharp. Overall I was satisfied with how the team performed,” ELAC head coach Elliot Walker said.
Cal Lutheran had an early point advantage, but the Huskies caught up when a sequence went in the Huskies favor. The final set ended when Cal Lutheran hit the ball to the outside, giving the win to the Huskies.
ELAC freshman middle hitter Esther Duru spiked the ball to win the second set 26-24. Duru led all Huskies with 19 kills, 10 more than any other teammate.
In the second set, both teams were neck-and-neck in points. When one team would score, the other team would score, it was back-and- forth the whole set.
There were many sequences where both teams just kept hitting the ball, not letting it touch the ground. The Huskies had multiple substitutions before the beginning of each serve throughout the match.
“We want to keep the energies (of players) fresh and keep the other team wondering. One comes in and takes an assignment to take back to the team and try something different. It’s all to keep the other team on their toes. It’s good to change patterns so the opposite team can try and decipher what our team is actually doing. It’s like a game of chess, you have to be strategic,” Walker said.
Cal Lutheran was moving the ball to the left in the first set in an attempt to create plays for junior Mikayla Dobson. The Huskies pulled away in the third set and won 29-5.
The Huskies had 10-point leads whenever a timeout was called. When Cal Lutheran reached 9 points the Huskies did not allow them to go any further than that. It seemed every time Cal Lutheran would try to come back and score points, the Huskies would shut them down.
Cal Lutheran could not rally for that, and the game was 2-1 in the Huskies favor.
The Huskies had some miscommunication in the fourth set, with players would not being ready to serve, or others getting in front of each other and missing the ball.
“We talk afterwards, if there is miscommunication, to find out what it is that happened, so that next time, it won’t happen.” Duru said.
Cal Lutheran won the fourth set 25-20.
This was the second time these two teams faced off against each other with Cal Lutheran winning the last game. ELAC has won all six of its games in the month of September, and is currently 6-4 on the season.
The next volleyball game will be tonight at Rio Hondo starting at 6 p.m.