Improved serving and communication contribute to first league win.

The Matadors won their sixth home game against Mountain View High School on Oct. 30 3-1. Their current standing in the De Anza League is 5-1. From the beginning, the atmosphere during this game showed more energy and volume than those of earlier games as the players ran onto the courts to face their black-and-yellow opponents, screaming “Fight!” and “Ball’s up” after every point.

“I asked the team to come out to win,” girls volleyball coach Colin Anderson said. The girls fulfilled his expectations.
Matadors started off strong during the first set, winning both the first and last point. Senior Nikita Sankar and senior co-captain Beverly Yu led the game with commendable serves- a seven point serving streak by Sankar, which solidified a 20-10 lead. During the set, Matadors further demonstrated strength in spiking, especially by senior co-captain Alice Liu who won her team several points. The team’s coordination was as the girls held out in long, intense rallies. The set’s turning point started at point 11-8, in which service was turned over to the Lady Mats who followed through with many passing of hands and culminated in a finishing by Liu. From there, the game switched service relatively few times, leading to a 25-15 win.

“I just didn’t think about it too much— I just aimed, and my serves were more relaxed,” Sankar said of her serving streak.

The team’s second game started 0-2, and much of the game followed with a back-and-forth that resulted in several ties and one and two point streaks. At set point 24-20, Mountain View managed to fight back to tie the game at 24-24, and ended up pulling past to win the game 26-24.

“When we first started [the second match], we were very comfortable with ourselves, which was pretty bad,” Yu said. “But then at the beginning of the third game, we said we need to beat them and we made sure they only got a few points.”

The third set passed quickly, with several long streaks that earned Matadors the game at 5-0, 9-5, and 18-15. For much of the set, Mountain View trailed the score, and Matadors sustained a steady defensive game with less powerful shots yet more consistency. Ultimately the set rounded off with a strong spike by freshman Kelly Bishop, giving the Matadors a winning set score of 25-17 and setting the match score at 2-1.
By the fourth set, Matador’s spirits were high, as they were on the verge of winning their first match of the season. However, the set started off with Mountain View leading 0-2. The players rallied their spirits to tie the score and pummel past to 6-3. Although the Spartans almost caught up to Matador’s score several times, the Matadors always managed to regain the service and set another strong lead. This game was riddled by several misinterpreted out-of-bounds calls, but ultimately, Yu’s service, Liu’s spikes,and Sankar’s returns pulled the team through to a 25-20 win and a 3-1 victory in their match.

Despite the win, the captains still aim to improve their play for their next game.

“I feel like we need to play just one consistent match throughout the entire night,” Yu said about their performance. The girls played hard, but Yu believed the energy levels varied throughout the day.

“We had the same mentality, we’re still trying to push — but we really have to keep our focus up till the end,” Liu said.