In their final home match of the season, the Cerritos College volleyball team was swept by Mt. San Antonio College, 18-25, 27-29, 19-25. The Falcons (1-18, 1-11) will play their final two regular season conference matches on the road and then enter the conference tournament, which will be held at Long Beach City College.

Just like in many of their previous matches during the season, Cerritos was able to stay close through most of the set, but could not come up with the big points when the set was on the line. The Falcons needed one set to get things going, as the Mounties opened a 4-0 lead on four service aces to start the match and cruised to the first set.

Down, 13-9 in the second set, Cerritos worked their way back to a 13-13 score on a pair of Sierra Hernandez-Hardy (Bishop Amat HS) kills and two Mountie attack errors. The Falcons would take a 17-16 lead and then opened that lead to 22-19 after kills from Hernandez-Hardy and Jackie Dixon (Gahr HS) before Mt. SAC scored four straight to go in front, 23-22. It was set point for Mt. SAC until Alexia Torres (Downey HS) and setter Mirka Granoble (Downey HS) recorded kills to tie the set, while Hernandez-Hardy gave the Falcons set point. Both teams would serve set point twice, with Mt. SAC getting two straight points to pull out the win.

The third set was tied, 13-13 until the Mounties successfully recorded multiple point rallys, with the Falcons scoring one at a time. Cerritos eventually ran out of time and suffered the loss.

Hernandez-Hardy led the team with 10 kills and added two block assists, with Torres producing seven kills. Granoble dished out 20 assists to go along with eight digs and four kills, while Brooke Winquist (Carlsbad International School, Czechia) finished with five kills and nine digs. The Mounties had three players post double-digit kills.

Photos by Daryl Peterson