On Wednesday night, the Cerritos College volleyball team won the first set against visiting Rio Hondo College, but could not build on that and lost in four sets. The 25-21, 8-25, 19-25, 20-25 South Coast Conference loss was the sixth in a row for the Falcons (1-13, 1-6), who will travel to East Los Angeles College on Friday for a 6:00 p.m. match. In their first meeting, Cerritos recorded a five-set win.
In that first set, the Falcons broke a 19-19 tie on a Mirka Granoble (Downey HS) kill, followed by a Roadrunner attack error for a 21-19 advantage. After a Cerritos service error, they regained the serve after an Alexia Torres (Downey HS) kill, with a ball-handling error and Sierra Hernandez-Hardy (Bishop Amat HS) kill getting the team to within set point. They earned that on another Hernandez-Hardy kill.
The second set was a disaster for Cerritos, so they looked to regroup and took an early 7-5 lead in the third set. The teams were tied from all the way to 15-15 until Rio Hondo posted five straight points for a 20-15 lead. The Falcons weren't able to string multiple points together and found themselves down, two sets to one.
Looking to get off to a quick start, Cerritos trailed, 6-2 to start the fourth set until they fought back to tie the score at 8-8. Just like the third set, the teams played evenly until the Roadrunners started to distance themselves from the Falcons. They got as close as 22-19 after a Hernandez-Hardy kill, but Rio Hondo had too much offensive weaponry and posted the win.
Hernandez-Hardy led the team with 11 kills and added eight digs, while freshman Gladys Garcia (Elizabeth Learning Center HS) posted nine kills. Granoble directed the offense with 24 assists and also contributed a trio of kills. The Roadrunners used a quartet of players at the net to keep the Falcons off-balance all night.