The Cerritos women’s volleyball team hosted the Rio Hondo Roadrunners on Sept. 13 for each team’s first conference match of the season.
The Lady Falcons were playing in hopes of continuing their five-game win streak but instead were handed their first loss.
This could’ve been anyone’s game since Cerritos had swept every team they have played up until this point and Rio Hondo had won five of their last six.
The Falcons were surprised by the Roadrunners quickness and fast-paced movements as a result, Cerritos struggled early on and were almost always playing catch up.
You can imagine the amount of pressure that was on this team considering what they have accomplished so far.
Head Coach Kari Hemmerling said, “I don’t think we’re complacent but Rio Hondo just played at a pace that we haven’t seen yet, they’re the best team that we’ve played so far.”
The first set was a continuous back-and-forth game with neither team trailing by five points or more, up until the very end when Rio Hondo was up 22-17 and eventually went on to win the set 25-18.
Rio Hondo struck first again in the second set but Cerritos was able to come back and went ahead by four points.
Although the Falcons had the lead for a bit, the Roadrunners would come right back to tie and take the lead.
The Roadrunners went on to win the second set 25-23 putting the Falcons in danger of getting swept at home.
The third set might have been the toughest the Falcons had played all night as they flipped the script and scored first, things were finally starting to go their way.
Rio Hondo had a total of 12 errors in this set which helped the Falcons gain many free points.
Cerritos sent this game to the fourth set and avoided the sweep by a win of 26-24 in the third set.
It was clear adjustments had been made and Hemmerling said “We told them we have to be more right-side heavy; we need to set Jasmine Soto some more and we did, she got more kills, that was the difference.”
The fourth set was difficult as Rio Hondo didn’t let losing the last one affect the way they played.
Cerritos had committed the most errors during this set on the night, including the last two points which helped Rio Hondo take home the win after winning the final set 25-22.
Sophomore middle blocker Erykah Scott is not going to let this loss stop her from preparing for the next game which is another conference matchup.
“I think we just have to come back harder and stronger and just keep the energy up,” said Scott with an eager smile on her face, “It’s really only up from here, there’s no such thing as a loss and we’re improving from here.”
Hailey Hammond, who is a red shirt for the Rio Hondo team said they saw the matchup against Cerritos as a challenge and they just wanted to perform better than the Falcons did.
“We had to keep our energy super high, I think that’s what we struggled with a little bit going into the third set,” said Hammond, “I believe that we got a little too cocky and just comfortable.”
The Falcons are set to face their rivals the Long Beach City College Vikings on Sept. 20.
