The Westmont Women’s volleyball team notched its first home sweep of the season tonight in Murchison gymnasium. After a long, hard week of practice, the women we able to come out and execute their plan well in a three-game win over San Diego Christian (25-16, 25-18, 25-22).
“Leading up to this match, we had a rough week of practice. One, because school is getting harder and two, because of the heat. Our gym was 90+ degrees and we were both physically and mentally slow,” explained head coach Patti Cook. “After last week, we knew that we needed to focus on getting our mental state back to being healthy. Physically, we can take on any opponent. But mentally we need to be sharp. We worked hard, we grinded, we did sprints in the hot gym and just pushed through.”
Their hard work paid off.
With 37 kills on just 92 attempts the Warriors were able to come out swinging with a .293 hitting percentage while keeping the Hawks under .140 percent. It was obvious that Westmont was there to play and playing to win.
“We could have gone into this game two different ways. We could have been fearful and on our heels because San Diego Christian has had a few big wins. We also could have been overconfident and gone into the game too lax. Both ends of the spectrum would have been detrimental to our play. So we focused on being somewhere in the middle,” debriefed Cook. Thankfully the Warriors did just that.
Anyone who has watched this team knows that one of the main keys to their success is the energy that they bring. The higher the energy, the higher the execution. The more vocal they are, the better they play. Tonight was no exception. The chatter on the court was constant and the energy was electrifying.
Senior Madison Serrano led the charge. “I was really pleased with Maddie. She was vocal, was a leader and passed exceptionally well. She came up in a big way with her serve receive. It was exactly what we needed,” raved Cook. Serrano finished with a team high of 9 kills and many clutch defensive plays throughout the match.
Coach Cook went on to say, “The key to this game was passing. Kami was moving well around the block and her passing was on point. She does not let balls hit the ground without a fight.” As the libero, Troesh finished with 11 of the teams 27 digs and led the squad in serve receive accuracy.
Another star performer was freshman Mila Maricic who earned the teams highest hitting percentage at .556 in tonight’s match. “Mila has been working on hitting versus going up to tip and she did not tip one ball tonight which was awesome! To see her put that plan into action and attack the ball vigorously was exactly what we wanted,” closed out Cook.
The Warriors are back in the gym in less than 24 hours to take on Arizona Christian this Saturday at 1pm.
