Despite a valiant effort from the Montgomery College Raptors women’s volleyball team (17-3), Tuesday night’s game in Rockville resulted in a 3-1 loss against the Monroe University Mustangs (17-4). The Raptors got off to a slow start with their eleven-point loss in the first set, previewing what many thought would be a blowout. However, they kept the second within four points, and won the third set while bringing the fourth and final one to overtime. An exclusive interview with Raptors setter Janelle Orellana details the closely-contested affair.
Orellana was asked about her exceptional setting leading up to Tuesday’s match, as she was averaging 15 assists per match throughout the season and more than 25 assists over the past two weeks.
“I personally believe that the synergy between myself and our [middle blockers] has grown stronger as the season’s progressed,” she stated. A surge in assists can be attributed to a number of things: the competition you’re facing, the passes you receive, the opposing team’s front line defense, but most importantly, the connection you have with your teammates.
The aforementioned treacherous opening set was thankfully the worst of the match. When asked about it, Orellana attributed the loss to their overwhelming number of errors.
“Something we can work on is consistency overall; we made more errors than points [that] we could have scored.” This is supported by the Raptors’ 13 errors compared to the Mustangs’ six in just the first set. The Raptors struggled immensely on the attack, as 68% of their total errors on the night were attack errors.
The second set was a bit cleaner and definitely more competitive, but still not enough for the Raptors to come out with a win. There wasn’t much middle ground regarding the Raptors’ attacks, it seemed that every hitting attempt was either a kill or an error. They recorded two more kills than they did in the first set with seven, but they also had two more errors with 15. The Mustangs’ play was sloppy as well, as they recorded 11 errors of their own, and it’s likely the Raptors would have taken the set if they had sharpened their play up just a tad.
The third set was the most dramatic, as the Raptors had a ton of highlight plays that aided their two point victory. They were down 2-0 in sets and 7-2 in the third when Monroe’s front line had a monster block on Raptors middle blocker Logan Burge; the crowd’s visceral reaction to the block was followed by comments by fans stating that the match was finished.
This ceased to be the case; outside and right side hitter Jaynna Crocker launched a cross shot that Monroe couldn’t receive– assisted by libero Milena Bates- to give the Raptors the ball back. Burge got her revenge by following Crocker’s point with a kill of her own– assisted by Orellana– alongside a block kill, and two consecutive service aces. Crocker, Bates, and setter Rosely Valdivia contributed to the “ace” category with one of their own in the third set as well. This momentum carried them to a 24-23 lead; after a lengthy rally that would decide whether the Raptors had another chance at the Mustangs or not, Valdivia swiftly dumped the ball just over the net to obtain a kill of her own, winning the Raptors the set.
This victory, however, was short lived, as the Raptors lost the fourth set in a tightly-contested 26-24 outcome. They made the least errors in this set by far, with only six, but the final rallies were long and proved to be too much for Montgomery.
“Monroe had a huge block and consistent defense… [we struggled] to execute,”
Orellana commented. This isn’t to take away from the Raptors’ stellar set, however, sometimes good offense is simply just met with better defense, and vice versa.
Following last Wednesday’s 3-1 win against the Frederick Community College Cougars, in Fredrick, the Raptors prepare for their tri-match against the Community College of Beaver County (3-13) and Chesapeake College (3-11) tomorrow at 11am and 3pm. The matches will be taking place at Montgomery College’s Rockville campus, for those who want to show their support.
