Mountain View Spartans beat the Matadors 3-0
On April 21, the boys varsity volleyball team lost to the Mountain View High School Spartans 3-0.
The Matadors started the first game lacking energy, which allowed the first place team in the league to take control.
Missed serves and hitting errors kept the Matadors trailing the entire game. Though the offense was struggling to rally some kills, the Matadors’ defense was what kept them going. Great passing and digs by senior Kevin Wu kept many plays alive, and Wu was eventually moved to a libero position later in the game.
Senior Krish Rangarajan also helped gain some points, leaping high into the in the air to block many kill attempts from the Spartans. The Matadors finished the game 18-25 the same way most of the game had gone, with a blocked spike attempt.
The beginning of the second game showed a little more spark. A strong spike by junior Jason Hodges allowed the Matadors to pull out in an early lead. The first few points were decided after many long rallies with both teams pushing hard to get the point. The Matadors’ biggest and only lead of the game came after an ace by sophomore Edward Wang, putting the boys up 4-2. However,the same problems that were present in the first game arose once again, with countless unforced hitting errors.
"You miss the shot, and then you want to get the next one in. [Then] you try twice as hard, and you end up murphing it," senior Shuang Xu said. "It’s kind of like a chain; once you screw up you just want to hit it harder, and it goes out."
There were a few good spikes and set combination efforts by the Matadors during long rallies, but never a strong finish. Mountain View took this game as well, winning 19-25.
In the third and determining game, defense was once again the dominant factor keeping the Matadors close in the game. Two diving digs by sophomore Jeffery Zhang kept seemingly dead plays alive, and his defensive plays kept the score tied all the way up to 8-8. The game began to follow the same trend as they did in the other game, with serves and spikes flying out of bounds and many going into the net. The rest were stopped by Mountain View’s strong blockers.
"If I would take one good thing out of this game it would be the defense— the number of plays into the net are almost equal to the number of kills," coach Paul Chiu said.
The boys fought hard till the end of the game, still trying to get some decent kills, but finished 16-25, ultimately losing the match 3-0.
