By Jesus Coronel

It was a hard fought game, but the Riverside City College women’s volleyball team lost to Saddleback College in straight sets Oct. 22.

Throughout most of the game, the Tigers kept it close going against the Bobcats, but the team struggled to close out sets.

Coach Clara Lowden expressed the team’s struggles.

“It was just unfortunate errors at the wrong time,” she said. “We have to keep the ball in play.”

The first set was an extremely back-and-forth game. The Bobcats would win it 28-26.

The Tigers had a four point lead in the middle of the second set. But the Bobcats went on to score nine out of the last 10 points to win the set 25-20. 

Momentum would carry to the third set for Saddleback as they would go on to a 16-8 lead.

Then came a nine-to-two run by the Tigers that propelled them back within two points to Saddleback’s lead at 18-16.

It came down to the final moments of the game but the Bobcats were victorious after the Tigers lost two consecutive points off errors. They won the final set 28-26.

Nonetheless, Lowden was happy with the effort given by the team.

“We were very even with the team by the scores we had,” Lowden said. “It was whoever made less errors that would win.” 

The loss drops their record to 6-11 in the season and 2-8 in conference play.

Libero Ashley Elias-Romero expressed that the team needs to work on consistency and maintain momentum. 

“We definitely have a lot of space to grow,” Elias-Romero said. “We’re hanging up there with all the teams in the league so we have to finish it.”

Outside Hitter Maggie Aburto had an impressive game with 19 kills but knows that the team can do better to win.

“We were stuck in certain rotations,” Aburto said. “A lot of it is inner mistakes that we do on ourselves.”