Jenna Anderson had 13 kills, 13 digs and three aces on Wednesday night as SBCC rallied for a 3-1 women’s volleyball triumph over Moorpark in a battle for first in the WSC North. The scores were 20-25, 25-15, 25-21, 25-14.
Emily Banas added eight kills and Bianca Castro had seven for the 16th-ranked Vaqueros (11-6), who posted their ninth straight win to stay perfect (5-0) in conference play. Moorpark fell to 9-7 and 3-1.
“The first game was just nerves and we had a lot of errors,” said Anderson, a 5-10 freshman opposite. “Once we got in the flow and played our game, we did great.”
The Vaqueros racked up eight of their 16 ace serves in the second set. They took control with a 14-3 run. Anderson had two straight aces and a kill from the back row early in that run and Mackenzie Mexico capped it with two more aces for an 18-9 lead.
“We changed our serving a little bit, trying to be more aggressive, and we’ve been practicing hard,” Anderson noted.
Setter Ariana Garner had five aces, Erika Bellitt and Anderson collected three and Banas had two. The Vaqueros only made seven service errors in four sets.
Mexico had a team-high 16 digs, Anderson added 13 and Lara Bangs had 12.
“Coach told us they’d come out fired up and strong,” said Bangs. “We came back and really wanted to win on our home turf. Especially because we know they’re our biggest competition in conference.”
SBCC is 3-1 at home this year and 34-4 in its last 38 in the Sports Pavilion.
The Vaqueros jumped ahead 6-0, 16-6 and 20-10 in the third set, and used a 12-5 run to take a 21-11 lead in the fourth. Moorpark got within two at the end of the third set, 23-21, but SBCC prevailed 25-21 on a service error and a block by Jasmine Ward.
“We had quite a few hitting errors in the first set, I think it was nerves,” said coach Ed Gover. “Our freshmen got scared of the first big game at home with both teams undefeated in conference.
“We needed their adrenaline to calm down. Once we did that, they started playing like they practiced. Serving got great, hitting picked up … everything went better once we relaxed.”
The Vaqueros open the second round of WSC play on Wednesday with a home game against Ventura at 7 p.m.
