Ukiah, CA – The Mendocino College Volleyball Team battled to win one of their two matches at the Butte Classic this past weekend.
The Eagle’s opened up against College of the Redwoods and established the tone of the match early on route to a straight set victory 30-24, 30-23 and 30-28.
Mendocino used its strong serving to take advantage of Redwood’s passing difficulties. The Eagle’s managed 21 aces in the match, including nine by Freshman Passion Allen Lenard (Lower Lake) and six by Freshman Shana Hiatt (Clearlake).
Sophomore Alisa Cannia (Fort Bragg) had six kills and Freshmen Jenn Cox (Upper Lake) had four kills, while Sophomore Sarah Luetke (Yreka) had 16 assists.
Against Butte College, the Eagle’s were defeated by the Roadrunners 30-16, 30-16 and 30-14.
Butte took advantage from the service line, while the Eagle’s only scored three aces during the match. Despite actually playing better volleyball against Butte, the Eagle’s were unable to get going and take advantage of their opportunities on offense.
“Playing Butte, a perennial conference front-runner will only benefit us. They are a skilled team with a lot of weapons. My players battled them and will take away some valuable experience,” Mendocino College Head Coach Ori Polkinghorne said.
Mendocino is 2-6 on the season. They will travel to Eureka to play College of the Redwoods on Friday September 21,2007
EAGLES VOLLEYBALL SUFFERS TOUGH LOSS Ukiah, CA - The Mendocino College women’s volleyball team had their hands full Wednesday night with the visiting Santa Rosa Junior College Bear Cubs. The Bear Cubs took the Eagle’s in straight sets, 30-9, 30-11 and 30-11.
“Our passing in serve-receive was probably our most glaring deficiency tonight,” Mendocino Head Coach Ori Polkinghorne said. “It allowed Santa Rosa to go on some scoring runs that put all three games out of reach.”
Mendocino came out in game one firing point for point with the Bear Cubs and even took an early 9-8 lead. However, the lead was short lived as the next two servers for Santa Rosa went on runs of seven and 13 points respectively, to put the game away.
The combination of Santa Rosa’s strong serving and Mendocino’s miscues continued throughout the match.
On a night that saw relatively little offense by the home team, sophomore Middle Hitter Jamie Brown (Potter Valley) pounded four kills for the Eagles. Another bright spot was the defensive effort by sophomore Sara Luetke (Yreka), who paced Mendocino with eight digs.
“We just didn’t play up to our ability tonight, plain and simple. The good news is that we play again Friday night and we have such a hard-working bunch that I know we’ll get back on track,” Polkinghorne said.
The Mendocino College volleyball team travels to Eureka Friday to take on College of the Redwoods, a team they have beaten twice already this season.
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