Cougars in Pink, Sweep Merced in Volleyball

by Dennis McCall
Taft Midway Driller

The effort wasn't pretty but the gym sure was. Taft College's volleyball team earned its fifth Central Valley Conference sweep Friday in the Cougar Sports Center at its annual breast cancer awareness night. 

The 25-21, 25-19 and 25-23 sweep of the Merced Blue Devils pushed the Cougars to 5-2 in the conference and 9-7 overall.  All five CVC wins were sweeps (West Hills, Columbia, Reedley, Sequoias and Merced) while both losses (Fresno and Porterville) also were sweeps. 

The Cougars look to continue the spree Wednesday at 6 p.m. when they host West Hills to open the second round of conference play. 

Cougar coach Kanoe Bandy was pleased her team won on the night the gym was splashed in pink ribbons to culminate breast cancer awareness week on campus, but she wasn't happy with the performance. 

"It really didn't look good at all," she said.  "We had too many errors.  In the end we did fine.  I thought we would play better because we did a really good job in practice." 

Freshman outside hitter Chanel Cantere, ranked sixth in the state, paced the offense with 12 kills to go with eight defensive digs. Sophomore middle blocker Brittany Peterson had 10 kills and three blocks.                         
Sophomore libero Jordyn Grissom led the defense with 12 digs, Kerstyn Randall had seven, Kristen Kamakele six, Dylan Parker four and Mele Yama three. Randall and Yama divided up the setting chores, getting credit for 18 and 11 assists respectively. 

Merced (3-4 CVC, 8-10 overall) jumped out to a quick 5-1 lead in the first set before the Cougars came to live with a 4-0 run.  It was point-for-point after that with 12 ties â€" the last one at 17 â€" and nine lead changes before the Cougars closed it out with back-to-back kills from Sina Mauga and Peterson. 

TC raced out to a 7-0 lead in set two and managed to stay at least two points ahead the rest of the way. 

The Cougars took a quick lead in game three but could not pull away. 

Merced got to within one at 18-17 and tied it at 23 before the Cougars put the match away, taking advantage of consecutive Blue Devil hitting errors.