For a while, wins were popping up for the LBCC women’s volleyball team faster than rabbits appear on their campus—they’d won their last three, only losing a single set in those matches.  But Wednesday night they hosted the no. 2-ranked El Camino Warriors, who beat the Vikes three sets to none when they played in El Camino in early October, and they couldn’t get over the hump, losing 17-25, 17-25, 25-22, 22-25.  With the loss they fall to 13-6, and 6-4 in conference play, while the Warriors are now 21-1, and 10-0 in the SCC.

In the second set, the Vikings struggled to get into any kind of offensive rhythm, scoring on consecutive points only twice, which included a very late five-point run to make it respectable.  In the third set, it looked like it might be more of the same, as the Warriors went up 11-7—LBCC was making a lot of errors, and looked like maybe they packed it in.  But then, sparked by outside hitter Maricris Lapaix, they rattled off eight straight points, taking the lead 15-11—while the set got close, they never relinquished the lead on their way to a 25-22 win.  Lapaix took over the second half, along with fellow OH Lacy Baker.  But Lapaix was a story herself within the loss, tallying 26 kills, 10 digs and 4 blocks on the night.  “She was unstoppable,” said LBCC coach Mary Witmer afterward.  “That run was all about heart.”

Despite the rally, the Vikings went on to fall behind big again the fourth set—a 6-2 Warriors run to make it 10-5 came with the help of five Vikings errors—and this time they couldn’t recover, although they did pull very close at the end, on the strength of a late 9-3 run before the Warriors finally put them away.  There was a lot to be positive about in the loss, though, since they were so competitive and since their own mistakes were more responsible for disrupting their rhythm than El Camino was, a big shift from their first meeting.  “We really wanted this,” Witmer said.  “We came out and played hard.”

They’ll need to keep it up if they want to make it out of next week.  They’re hosting Pasadena next Wednesday, and then traveling to Mt. Sac that Friday—both teams swept the Vikings in their prior meetings.