Eduardo Miranda
The Daily Independent
After playing in a non-conference game, the Cerro Coso Coyotes volleyball team welcomed San Bernardino Valley to its home gym to begin the final four Inland Empire Athletic Conference matches. The Coyotes were looking to end conference play with a strong showing but struggled with their hitting against the Wolverines and fell in three sets, 25-12, 25-20, and 25-13.
"I think we didn't do a very great job of executing what we wanted to do. We just kind of played whatever volleyball, and that can't happen," said head coach Armando Gamez after the loss.
The Coyotes finished with 24 kills on 106 attempts with Madison Meinert leading the team with nine, while Emorie Mogle had six and Lexi Higer had five. They had 24 assists, all from Ariel Meech. They had three aces from Imani Parker, Brooke Murphy, and Emma Gonzalez, all with one each. They had 47 digs led by Parker with 15, Karla Ortiz with 10, and Abby Wuestenhoefer with nine. And they had two solo blocks from Murphy and Higer.
In the loss, Cerro Coso had some moments where the Coyotes showed their potential on both ends. The Coyotes' defense was able to control kill attempts from the Wolverines and then turn it into an attacking option, but many of their hits went long and out.
The defense was able to keep rallies alive even controlling hits into the net. When they controlled the ball, the offense was able to find their setter who then set the ball for the outside hitters to have a chance at terminating it for a kill. The Coyotes hitters beat single and double blockers from the Wolverines but on most occasions their attempts where long.
Cerro Coso will try to bounce back from the loss when it travels to Mt. San Jacinto on Friday for its road finale. The Coyotes then return for the final two home games on Wednesday against Copper Mountain and Friday against Victor Valley, which is also Sophomore Night for the Coyotes. All three games begin at 5 p.m.
In the first set the Coyotes had only five kills on 35 attempts with eight errors. In the second set the home team improved with 10 kills on 38 attempts with three errors. In the third set, they had nine kills on 31 attempts but nine errors.
After struggling in the first set, the Coyotes kept the second set close, trailing 9-8 after a timeout. An ace from Murphy tied the set at 10-10, but the visitors responded by scoring five straight points. The Coyotes scored to stop the run and traded points to trail 16-12, but that started another Wolverine run.
Meinert scored on a kill to stop the run at 20-13. That led to the Coyotes going on a small run with kills from Murphy and an ace from Gonzalez to cut the deficit to 21-17. The Wolverines scored the next two points, the Coyotes got a point back, and the visitors scored for a 24-18 lead. The Coyotes scored on back-to-back kills from Mogle but the visitors scored for a 25-20 set winner.
The third set had San Bernardino Valley jump out to a 2-0 lead, but a kill from Meinert gave the Coyotes a chance to tie it. But the Wolverines were too much for the Coyotes and they outscored the home team 16-5 to go up 18-6. During that run, Meinert and Mogle both had a kill but the Coyotes struggled with multiple hit attempts all going past the baseline and out.
The best moment of the set came with the Coyotes scoring the next four points on two kills from Higer and one by Meinert that cut the deficit to 18-10. The visitors then scored the next four points and the Coyotes got one back when the visitors couldn't keep the rally alive. But trailing 22-11, the Coyotes could not stop the Wolverines from scoring the final three points but had Higer score their final point on a kill before falling 25-13.
With three games left in the season, Gamez said on his team's performance in those final three games, "hopefully we can execute a lot better and do what we are supposed to do."