After a successful opening game against Santa Monica College and first win against Santa Barbara at the EC Classic, the women’s volleyball team experienced its first loss.

Last Friday during the EC Classic second game against Cypress College, the Warriors had its first loss.

The Warriors loss 22-25, 25-15, 16-25, 25-16, 15-13 in five sets.

Both teams were evenly matched going into the deciding fifth game, until Cypress took the lead on a hitting error and clinched the match.

“It’s going to be a big load for her (Luafalemana) all year, to see her keep working, stay positive and lead the team, which she has handled very well,” Le Valley Pattison, coach, said.

A dominating performance by Tarryn Luafalemana, outside hitter, who had twenty-five kills and fifteen digs.

Pattison has praise for returning sophomore, Luafalemana and wants to see contributions from every player on the team.

“We need a little offense from every position, we rely a lot on Tarryn and Nigeria,” Pattison said.

Nigeria Owens, middle blocker, is a returning sophore who had eight kills and nine blocks at the match against Cypress College.

Luafalemana is confident that the team will clean up its mistakes and bounce back.

“We know what we need to do to grow to get better on the court, nothing we can’t fix in practice,” Luafalemana said.

Elise Tizon finished with nine kills, three blocks and one ace against Cypress.

“It was intense, we commited to the game even though we had small errors,” Tizon, rightside hitter and libero, said.

Leading the defense was Karlee Napoleon with 19 digs.

“We just need to work more on our technical stuff like blocking, serving and looking for open areas to hit for everybody on the team including myself,” Luafalemana said

The women’s volleyball team beat Santa Barbara College at the earlier match last friday soundly in three games 25-11, 25-16, 27-25. Luafalemana led the way with 20 kills and 10 digs.

Freshman Nicole Echeverri chipped in with five kills and two aces and Karlee Napoleon had nine digs.

“We had a good game kind of Rocky but it was our first game,” Luafalemana said.

The women’s volleyball team had a victorious win against Santa Monica College in Wednesday night’s nonconference game.

Striking three wins in a row, 25-9, 25-18, 25-22, the Warriors had an impressive season opener.

“We came out strong in the first game, the second game I was a little nervous and the third game was close,” Pattison said.

“We got off to a good start and it was fun to finally see the women play,” Pattison said.

Santa Monica College has a great libero, Karlee Napoleon, libero, said.

“We have to keep on playing hard and aggressive,” Napoleon said.

Luafalemana, outside hitter, led the way with 13 kills and 11 digs at the Santa Monica College game.

In 2011, Luafalemana had a successful season where she tallied 54 kills.

“Our first game together, we did really well with communicating, we played together and got better as the game went on,” Chelsea Mataalii, outside hitter, said.

The Warriors played well in their first two games, but struggled in the third game against Santa Monica College.

“Our freshman did a good job communicting with the team during the game,” Owens, middle blocker, said.

Allison Lim, freshman, setter,  helped the Warriors with 29 assists Pattison added.

“They did not give up I expected them to roll over, we realized that we had to come together and finish the game off,” Mataalii said.

“In the third game, we struggled passing, it was a little hard to run our offense, we had to push hard to get the last points,” Mataalii said.

The women’s volleyball team will play all day at the San Diego Mesa Invitational tomorrow and Saturday.