Varsity Girls Volleyball defeated Sequoia High School 3-1 on Friday, Oct. 20, bringing its overall record to 17-8. The Matadors won a close first set 25-23 and won the second set with a greater margin, with a score of 25-14. The momentum temporarily shifted to SHS, as it won the third set with a score of 23-25, but the Matadors were able to regain momentum and finish the game in the fourth and final set with a score of 25-19.
Senior and outside hitter Evelyn Yang didn’t have high expectations for the game because the team had not played SHS for the past two seasons, but she still strongly believed that MVHS would come out on top.
“I thought it [went] pretty well at first and then after that the energy kind of died,” Yang said. “We [were] lost but then we pushed through and we fought [and] at the end we still won.”
Likewise, Junior Varsity Head Coach Nadia Lan was unfamiliar with SHS going into this matchup, so she expected to use this game as practice against future CCS opponents. Generally, in the first set of matches, Lan wants her players to focus on understanding their opponents’ strengths and weaknesses, so they can vary their play style to target said weaknesses.
“Usually we start a little bit slower, we take a little bit of time to warm up, but this time we came out really strong,” Lan said. “But they also exposed our weaknesses, because we won the first set so [easily], the second set [was] not really too [difficult, but] then we got sloppy on the third and even the fourth [sets]. I think the lesson that we learned is [that] we cannot underestimate anybody.”
With this matchup, Lan identified some flaws in the Matadors’ play such as serve receives and panicking during key moments, causing them to make easily avoidable mistakes. She emphasizes that their priority in the future is to reduce these errors, especially by the postseason.
“Our takeaway is that you cannot just underestimate your opponents no matter who you are playing, even [if] we beat them every single time we face them,” Lan said. “When you get on the court, it can be anyone’s game, so we always have to be focused [and] play our best.”
