It was supposed to be a good match, there was supposed to be a lot of hype, it was supposed to be close.
But sophomore outside hitter Rockelle Gholson and the Cypress College Chargers (2-0) had other plans.
She went to work on offense banking kills left and right, while her defense, led by sophomore libero Emily Witz, proved to be much more scrappy compared to the visiting Warriors.
The El Camino women’s volleyball team (3-1) came out flat, unenergetic and defensively lacking in today’s road match, which ended with the Chargers dominating the court in a 3-0 sweep.
“I thought we did really well as a team, and passed well (this year),” Witz said.
In the 2015 season, the Warriors lost to the Chargers at the Cerritos Tournament, 3-1 in the finals. Several days later the Chargers visited the Warriors in a rematch, only to be knocked around in a sweep.
Gholson credited the loss last season to certain teammates that were present on the Chargers’ roster.
“We did a whole lot better this year,” she said. “Because we had a better attitude this year. Last year was really bad, we had teammates with a really bad attitude, which caused bad playing.”
But even with the defense playing well and out-scrapping El Camino, Gholson thinks that the team’s defense could have been even better than it was today and that everyone will see at the Cerritos Tournament this Friday and Saturday.
“We want to repeat as champions,” she said. “We want to make it a tradition and win it every year.”
The Warriors dropped not only their first set of the regular season, but also their first game in the loss.
“The defense did struggle,” El Camino coach Le Valley Pattison said. “I think to improve we need to be more disciplined, we worked a lot on blocking yesterday, but we didn’t implement it too much (today).”
Although several players struggled, Pattison rarely made moves from the bench, and it seems to be her plan to get the freshman and team more prepared for future situations, like the Cerritos Tournament coming up on Friday and Saturday.
“Things like (getting targeted) happen,” she said. “It’s all about we respond back. It’s easy to win, you never see what’s wrong with your team. Tonight, we saw that we weren’t very balanced.”
