Photo by Falacci Johnston
Royals WVB experiment in home opener
By Davie Wong, Sports Editor
While the home opener is sacred for many teams, for the Royals women’s volleyball team, it was an opportunity to showcase the entire team, as well as experiment with new formations. Their opponents, the CBC Bearcats, are not known for being the best in recent years. A chance to tinker, as well as a chance to get everyone solid rotational play time, is what a game against the Bearcats allowed for.
The first rotation of Royals seemed to work well. Vicki Schley transitioned flawlessly into the go-to outside hitter with Vania Oliveira on the bench. She delivered lethal spikes to give her team an early lead, and carried them through the set. Unable to stop her, Schley went wild, notching kill after kill, en-route to a Royals 25-20 set win.
Rotation saw a dramatically different lineup take the court in the second. The Bearcats were able to match up with that lineup a little better, and gave them trouble here and there. The two sides traded points back and forth but the Royals never relented. Once they seized the lead, it was theirs to hold. The Bearcats came close, tying the game in the dying seconds, 24-24. But the Royals had a quality that the Bearcats lacked, and finished their chances stronger. The result was a 27-25 win for the Royals.
A couple tweaks and the Royals lineup was ready. Their smart rotations earned them a 25-17 set win, and a big 3-0 over the CBC Bearcats… but game two was where the real excitement was found.
The Bearcats were animals on the prowl in game two, pouncing on any mistake. Set one yielded enough mistakes that the Royals lost due to errors, 25-21. Set two really knocked the Royals down a peg. Dropping the set 25-21 meant that the Royals were against the wall with quite the journey ahead of them. First off, they needed to survive.
The team made the first steps to a comeback with a big 25-17 win in the third set to keep themselves alive. Adrenaline pumping and momentum at their backs, the Royals wrenched the fourth set at away from the Bearcats. Just when people thought it was over, the Royals had come back to tie it. Just one thing stood in the way of win or a loss now. Down to the final set, it was do or die.
Come to think of it, that’s nothing new to the Royals. The team looked calm and collected as they bagged their second win of the weekend off of a 15-8 set win. The comeback complete, the Royals can proudly look back on week two of the PACWEST season. The wins elevated the Royals to the top of the PACWEST standings. They sit tied for first with the UFV Cascades. Both have records of 3-1.
