Vaquero hitters are hot in 64-minute sweep

SBCC posted its second-highest hitting percentage and its fewest errors on Wednesday in a 64-minute women's volleyball sweep of L.A. Pierce in the Sports Pavilion. The scores were 25-15, 25-14, 25-18.

The Vaqueros hit .343 with just seven hitting errors. They've won five of their last seven (all by 3-0 sweeps) to improve to 6-9 overall and 2-1 in the WSC North.

Madi Mullins led the way with nine kills and a .643 percentage. Gabi Brewer had eight kills and a season-high .571 hitting efficiency. Neither player had an error in 14 swings.

"We had a specific game plan going in," said coach Kat Niksto. "We knew Pierce has struggled in league, so we felt pretty confident. That being said, my goal is always to get better. I was a little disappointed in our overall level of play. We should have controlled the tempo and pace a little bit more than we did."

Lauren Holsted added six kills, six digs and five aces.

The Vaqueros came out cold and fell behind 4-0 and 7-2 before getting their bearings. A kill by Mullins ignited a 16-4 run and the Vaqueros only trailed a handful of times the rest of the night.

Holsted closed out the first set with an ace and served another one to end the match.

The Vaqueros built comfortable leads in the second set, going up 9-2 and 17-5 on back-to-back aces by the left-handed Brewer. They fell behind 9-7 in the third set, then put together a 13-5 burst to take a 20-14 advantage. Mullins crushed a couple of quick sets in the middle for the 23rd and 24th points.

"I thought Gabi had some good swings and Mak (Makenzie Phelps) has been working hard on her swings on the outside," said Niksto. "She's done what I asked in terms of her approach to attacking to take her offense to the next level.

"And Madie Meyer came in the back row for Gabi and played some really nice defense. She's always quick on her toes and gets a lot of touches. We had some aces tonight but too often we end our long serving runs by missing serves. And that was one of the things we had specifically focused on. When you have another team struggling, you can't let them off the hook by missing your serve and we're still doing that too often."

The Vaqueros will play their fourth straight home match on Friday when Cuesta visits the Sports Pavilion at 6 p.m.