Lauren Hannani staff writer
Girls varsity volleyball fell to West Torrance in its first league home game on Thursday, Sept. 15 with a final score of 3-1.
The team was defeated in three sets, losing to the opposing team 8-25 in the first set, 16-25 in the second and 9-25 in the fourth. Some of the skills the team hopes to improve for future games include their communication skills and technique on the court.
“We need to communicate more on the court and think more strategically. We tend to get flustered [during the game], but we have to learn to be calm and just play with the technique our new coaches, Miranda and Jessica, have taught us,” outside hitter Michelle Heravi said.
However, the team did win the third set of the game with a score of 25-22 after taking some time to get acclimated to the opposing team’s impressive skills.
“I definitely think we are improving every day,” co-captain Maytal Sarafian said. “Today we faced one of the strongest teams we have played all season, and it took a little while for us to adjust to the speed of the play. But as soon as we got the hang of it, we played really well.”
Although they did not win the game, the team is learning new skills through each match and improving each week with more practice.
“We’ve tremendously improved our defense and offense from the many drills that our coach has taught us, and we’ve practiced a lot of serve receive over the last few weeks,” Heravi said.
Sarafian also believes the players were able to learn from their previous mistakes during the game and prove their growing strength as a team.
“Although we did not start the game as well as we had hoped, we were able to get ourselves out of trouble many times, something we have struggled to do in previous games,” Sarafian said. “For this game, we really changed our mentalities and proved that we are both physically and mentally a stronger team than ever before.”
With their next home game on Sept. 21 against Hawthorne, the team is looking forward to further improving with each game.
“I’m looking forward to seeing how we progress and get better each week,” Heravi said. “The games are so fun because it’s when you see everyone’s hard work pay off.”