A four-year college from Nebraska will visit El Camino College to play the women’s beach volleyball team in the second game of a doubleheader on Saturday, March 13 at the ECC sand courts.

ECC will host conference opponent Rio Hondo College at 10 a.m. and will cap its two-game day playing a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) division two university Wayne State College at 1 p.m.

The Warriors (6-1) occasional match against an out-of-state college comes in the midst of conference as the Warriors would have played three conference games.

ECC’s only loss came against California State University Northridge.

“Beach volleyball is pretty young for universities and I think they’re trying to fill their schedule with good competition when they’re out here [west coast],” Warriors head coach Le Valley Pattison said. “We start conference this Friday so really a little more important.”

Conference games are important because playing division two schools do not help with playoffs or conference seeding, Pattison said.

“The experience is what we’re looking for,” Pattison said. “It’s a great opportunity to see kind of everybody play against some older kids.”

ECC will begin conference play with a pair of games against Mt. San Antonio College (SAC) at 10 a.m. and Desert College at 11:30 a.m. on Friday, March 6 at Mt. SAC. Both opposing schools have one win and four losses this season.

“We can improve on a little more aggressive serving [and] getting a few [more] points [while] serving,” Pattison said. “[Also], limiting unforced errors and keeping the ball in play when things aren’t perfect.”

The returning players for ECC have helped tremendously as the team has continued to improve as the season goes on, Pattison said.

“The experience [of playing older competition] is what we’re looking for,” Pattison said. “[We’re] lucky to have six coaches out here that are high level athletes themselves so [the team] always [gets] challenged in practice.”