It was raining aces on Friday night in the Sports Pavilion as SBCC rallied for a 3-1 women’s volleyball victory over Oxnard. The scores were 19-25, 25-10, 25-10, 25-13.
The 22nd-ranked Vaqueros (9-9, 6-1 WSC North) had a season-high 24 ace serves. Katie Dolan, making her service debut, had five aces as did Erika Bellitt. Arianna Kamp had four while Rachel Stehly and setter Mariah Mathews added three apiece.
Dolan, a 5-8 opposite hitter, normally subs out for the libero (defensive specialist) when its her turn to serve but her jump serve was effective on Friday.
The Vaqueros led 8-2 and 17-14 in the first set before the Condors (2-10, 1-6) took control with a 7-0 run.
“We tried a new lineup in the first game and we didn’t respond as well as we should have,” said Kamp, a sophomore opposite from Bozeman, Montana. “We got back in the groove in the last three games. We’ve been working on our float serves all week.”
Emily Banas had nine kills, Heidi Van Den Oever had seven and middle hitter Bianca Castro contributed five.
“In order to develop our team for the rest of the season, we have to do something different,” noted assistant coach Armen Zakarian. “We wanted to put more players in the lineup. We didn‘t make too many mindful decisions in the first set.
“We went back to our regular rotation and held them to 20 points in the next two sets.”
The Vaqueros jumped ahead 8-2 and 20-5 in the second set, thanks in part to nine aces. Bellitt had four of her five aces in the set. They led 8-2 and 20-6 in the third set and 12-5 and 19-8 in the fourth.
“We wanted to go to our middles as much as possible and we got some great swings,” said Zakarian. “That’s what we were lacking against Moorpark.”
SBCC travels to Ventura on Wednesday.
