After a tough tournament in San Diego, the women’s volleyball team begins conference play with an undefeated record.
The team takes on Cerritos College on Friday in the South Gym and East L.A. next Wednesday also at home.
“Friday is going to be a good match,” coach La Valley Pattison said. “Cerritos, Long Beach and EC are usually the top three teams in the conference.”
Last year EC won the conference with Cerritos coming in second.
“We know who they are, we know how they pass and we know who their big hitters are,” Amie Abad said.
East L.A. is an up and coming program that is in a rebuilding stage, but has been improving every match.
“They are way better than they were last year,” Pattison said.
East L.A. hired a new coach two years ago who has began working with the club teams in the area in hopes of building a stronger feeder program into the school’s team.
During the weekend, the team traveled to San Diego for one of the most competitive tournaments of the season. Teams flocked to Mesa College from as far away as Northern California and Arizona.
“The Arizona team’s were very competitive because they are allowed to recruit over there,” assistant coach Richard Blount said.
Out of the 15 teams that took part in the tournament, EC placed third. In pool play, the Warriors beat Pasadena, Moorpark, Sacramento Valley, and split two games with Palomar.
“We were the number one seed going into the playoffs,” Blount said.
During the second day of competition, the team played a full match against Cypress, which officially counts toward its conference record.
EC then played against Glendale, Arizona, and ended up losing two games to one.
“We lost because of bad passing and a lot of unforced errors,” Lauren Taylor said.
Even with the loss, the coaching staff said it believes the games were a good learning experience.
The Warriors played more games at the tournament than at any other competition they have been in.
EC had eight games on the first day and five on the second day.
“We played a lot of games over the weekend, but that was a good thing because we saw some teams we will see in the future,” Blount said.
