Friends and family all gathered at the end of the game on Wednesday night, not to congratulate the team for the night’s win, but to congratulate it for a successful season.

During the last game of the regular season, the EC men’s volleyball team did not fail to show their gratitude toward its loyal fans, as they took an easy win against a struggling L.A. Trade Tech (0-11), that came out trying to redeem their respective season by beating the Warriors who are now 11-1, and headed to semifinals.

“They (Tech) were going to give it their all in their last game of the season,” assistant coach Kurt Peters said. “I thought our guys did a good job of playing hard and staying on top of them and getting out of here in three games.”

The Warriors did in fact do a good job as they swept the match by the scores of 25-17, 25-20, and 25-15.

“We kept the ball in play, forcing them to make the error,” sophomore outside hitter Brandon Hiehle said. “We just did our thing and played defense.”

Despite the great defense and the great performance, the team knows that there is still a lot of work to be done before its first playoff match.

“We still tend to hit a lot of balls out of bounds,” Peters said. “If we can clean that up and make the other team earn its points, we should get even better results than we are getting so far.”

The semifinal will be on April 23 against the winner of the first round match between Grossmont College and Santa Monica College. This leaves the team with time to work on its errors, however, they will have to make do without their best asset: the home crowd.

“Having fans come out to support us feels great,” sophomore middle blocker Roy Powell said. “Past years the fan base wasn’t too intense, but this year we’re getting a lot more fans and it makes playing that much more fun, and more motivated to get that win for them.”

The stage is set, the opponent isn’t however, but the Warriors have had a terrific season having lost only one game, and they are highly motivated to win.

“I’m not hoping for anything less, just winning,” Hiehle said.

Gas is not cheap, but friends and family will surely not hesitate and pay just to make it to their teams’ game which will be in Santiago Canyon.

“I just hope we play well, if we play well we’ll have a good chance to win,” Peters said. “All six teams that made the playoffs are very good teams, and anyone can win on any given night and if we lose playing well, then there’s nothing to be ashamed of.”