By Courtney Hughey
Staff Writer
The Mira Costa girls volleyball team played their final regular season match against rival Redondo Union High School at home on Tuesday Oct. 30. After already losing to Redondo this season, the Mustangs lost to Redondo, 3-1 and placed 2nd overall in Bay League.
Redondo took an early lead in the beginning of the first game and continued to maintain their lead, with Costa staying close behind. A combination of miscommunications and confounding mistakes cost the Mustangs points which led to a 25-20 Redondo victory in the first game.
“We were really struggling with the fundamentals, serving and passing, and our defense needed a little help”, senior outside hitter Lexi Millington said. “Our offense was pretty good, but we just needed to do small adjustments.”
The Mustangs came back in the second game with consecutive points made by senior outside hitter Grayce Campbell who had eight kills and Millington who had three in the second game. Costa continued to push through, taking advantage of Redondo’s mistakes and putting away easy points.
“We were passing a lot better so we were able to run a lot of different plays,” senior middle blocker Kelsey McIntire said. “We were also serving a lot better after the first game.”
Though Costa had some problems with hitting serves into the net and serving out of bounds, they quickly bounced back to maintain their lead. In the end, Millington had a kill and Redondo hit the ball out of bounds to end the second game with a Mustang victory, 25-23.
“We started to have a fire in the second game,” Millington said. “We wanted to win so badly that we pushed ourselves as far as we could. We never gave up and we kept our energy high throughout that game.”
Costa took the lead at the beginning of the third game with Millington leading the offense with 20 kills and senior setter Corie Bain, who had three aces. Bain made important digs throughout the long rallies, which resulted in two consecutive points for Costa, giving them a two-point lead.
“We were trying to finish little plays early to take care of those points”, coach Lisa Arce-Zimmerman said. “We had to try and not give up the big plays to lose those easy points.”
Towards the end of the game, Redondo kept the ball in the air during long rallies and put away points to widen the score gap. Millington and Campbell tried to keep Costa close by tying the score twice, but the Mustangs fell short and lost the third game, 20-25.
“Their long rallies really wore on us and by the end of the game we weren’t as sharp as we should have been,” Arce-Zimmerman said. “The girls started to lose control of the game and that hurt us mentally coming into the fourth game.”
At the start of the fourth game, Costa began making early mistakes that put them in a 4-point deficit. The Mustangs were struggling to keep their serves in bounds, while Redondo was taking advantage of their mistakes and making big plays.
“Redondo was really on their game and we weren’t playing as well as we could,” Mcintire said. “We started to get far behind, so we stopped fighting and let Redondo gain an even higher lead on us.”
Towards the end of the game, Redondo placed balls easily in the middle of the court and gained a 20-12 lead. Costa was, again, struggling to keep the ball up and, though senior middle blocker Gabi Rosenfeld made two important blocks, the Mustangs lost the fourth game 25-14.
“The girls didn’t think that they could make the plays to comeback after Redondo got that big run early,” Arce-Zimmerman said. “We started off with some bad passes and that set the precedent for the rest of the match.”
Costa is now second place in Bay League, behind Redondo. As they prepare for their first CIF match on Tuesday Nov. 6, Costa’s overall record is 18-11.
“Going into CIF, we really need to work hard on tougher serving and making sure we get our defense down,” Arce-Zimmerman said. “We have to show up to all our games ready win and not just trying to stay in the game.”
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