Glendale College’s Lady Vaqueros lost a hard-fought game to visiting Moorpark College Friday shattering their two-game winning-streak.
The tough, heavy-hitting Moorpark team proved to be too much for Glendale as they defeated the Lady Vaqs three games to one. Moorpark is currently ranked sixth in the state.
“Moorpark is an excellent team, composed of very tall and hard hitting players, they just beat Irvine last week, so we knew that we had to prepare for them,” said assistant coach Lucinda Bucan. “Actually, we could have won any of those games; we just needed to work more on our consistency.”
Co-assistant coach Maria Olilang added, “we could have tired them out. They were a lot more fatigued than us; if we went to five sets, we would have had a very good chance of winning.”
“This team was pretty loaded on the outside, yet I thought we blocked so much better in this game, but we’re still making too many errors and giving up too many points,” said coach Yvette Ybarra.
Ybarra described her team’s defense as being “spastic.”
“The ball was all over the place, we just need to control it more,” said Ybarra. “We still want to continue our scrappy defense, but at least work more on controlling it so we can still dig out those tough balls.”
Ybarra made it a point to tell her team that they are a very good team and that all they have to do is reduce their errors and they will excel.
On the defensive side, Glendale struggled a bit, but the 13 digs by freshman Carissa Mathijssen and 12 digs by sophomore Beverly Gonzales kept them quite close.
“I think we need to work more on just following through and communication,” said Mathijssen. “When we had our time playing good defense and actually communicating, they couldn’t stop us. We just have to keep our composure in these types of situations; I know we can do it.”
Glendale, in the start of the season, had apparent troubles both in offense and defense. But as the season progresses, it’s more and more obvious that the players are acclimating themselves and are getting used to each other’s style of play.
This is more evident from the two most consistent players on the team, assist-leader Nicole Diller and scoring powerhouse, Aya Nakano.
Diller has led the team in assists in almost every single one of their games. She racked up 35 assists and a couple of serving aces in their game against Moorpark.
When Diller was interviewed after the game about what she thinks they need to work on for the next game, she humbly said “I think our passing was a little bit up and down, we need to be more consistent.”
Once again, like all the other games, Nakano is atop the leader boards with the most kills, serving up 17 kills for the Moorpark game.
Anyone who has watched any of the volleyball games will know that Nakano is a special player. Perhaps the most important aspect of her game was her ability to be able to laugh and fool around even when the chips are down. It’s obvious that she stands out as the leader of the team with her cheery personality and ability to make everyone else around her positive.
Letty Cruz, parent of an East Lost Angeles College player said, “She’s really entertaining to watch,” about Nakano.
When asked how she’s able to laugh and still keep her composure throughout the game, Nakano laughed and said, “I’m just a goofy girl.”
The Lady Vaqs are currently 4-4. Their last games will be against Ventura College Sept. 30, and Oxnard College on Oct. 3 before Western State Conference starts on Oct. 7.
