SANTA ANA, Calif. – In an intense Orange Empire Conference match against the Riverside City Tigers, the Santa Ana College volleyball team pulled off the upset with a 3-1 (25-22, 22-25, 21-25, 23-25) win.
SAC earned their second OEC win of the year and improved to 5-14, 2-9 while dropping the Tigers to a record of 10-11, 4-7.
The match began with Riverside getting out to an early lead before the Dons battled back to even the score at 20-20. A service error and a couple kills by Josephine Sua gave RCC a 23-20 lead. Santa Ana responded with a point on a Tiger error and an ace from Taylor Hernandez to cut the lead to one. Following a timeout, Riverside went on a 2-0 run to end the set up 25-23.
SAC continued to play at high level in the second set and bounced back with a 25-22 win of their own. Elizabeth Merold, Myrandah Zepeda and Ashly Hernandez collected three kills a piece to lead Santa Ana's offense, tying the match at one all.
The turning point came in the third set when the Dons found themselves down 16-8. At that point, Santa Ana flipped the switch and went on an unforeseen 17-5 run, storming back to take the set 25-21. Zepeda played a huge role in the comeback as she put away five kills during the span.
Santa Ana kept the same energy as they pushed points in the fourth set, giving themselves a 20-15 lead. But Riverside wasn't quite done as they fought back with four consecutive points. The two teams went back and forth until Ashly Hernandez put the Dons up 24-23 with a kill followed by an RCC hitting error that ended the match.
Zepeda led all players with 17 kills in the match to go with nine digs and a couple blocking assists. Ashly Hernandez pitched in with a double-double performance, logging 12 kills, 16 digs and two aces. And Merold contributed with 8 kills and three blocking assists.
Freshman setter Courtney Gomez was inserted into the lineup in the second set and put a jolt in the Don offense. Gomez finished with 30 assists, her second highest total this season, in arguably her best outing of the year.
And the Santa Ana defensive anchor, Ally Wardlow, had another impactful game with her tenth 20 dig night while adding five aces and four assists.
NEXT UP: Santa Ana looks to keep things rolling in the right direction as they go on the road to take on No. 23 Orange Coast (15-4, 8-3) on Friday at 6:00 p.m.
