Tiger improve to 3-0 with home victory over San Joaquin Memorial

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It’s almost as if they never left the court. Despite the absences of a few old faces, and the arrival of a few new ones, Lemoore’s varsity volleyball team picked up right where they left last year: by winning. The Tigers opened their season with an easy three-set victory over Edison last week and on Tuesday, survived a second-game scare from Sunnyside High School to win their sixth straight set over two contests.

Schedule

Lemoore beat Sunnyside 25-10, 25-23, 25-13 to improve to 2-0 on the young season. They will travel to Clovis this weekend for a tournament before they return home for a matchup against San Joaquin Memorial Tuesday night (Sept. 3).

Tiger Coach Rachel Taylor, whose team a year ago won the West Yosemite League championship, but lost in the Central Section finals to El Diamante, was more than pleased with her team’s performance.

“You know, we are really excited about our defense and our servicing. Defense is going to be our best offense this year,” said a pleased Taylor after watching her girls crush Sunnyside. “We struggle sometimes in the hitting a little bit but the girls are aggressive and they don’t ever give up on the ball. I’ve never had that before.”

Despite crushing Sunnyside in three sets, the Tigers faced a formidable challenge in the second set. Leading 20-5 and on their way to a blowout, Lemoore let down a bit as Sunnyside outscored the Tigers 15-5 to draw to within one point at 23-21. At that point Taylor called a timeout to settle her troops. It seemed to work.

The Tigers came up with a pair of points to win 25-23. Sunnyside appeared to let down in the third and final set, finally succumbing 25-13.

“I always want the first home game to be exciting,” joked Taylor. “I like to see that, to see that they can stay in it, keep calm and take care of it and that was the first time they’ve had a little bit of pressure and they came through.”

Taylor pointed out Jessica Evangelho as turning in a solid performance. “Jessica, my libero, played real solid tonight, she was picking up everything, dove after stuff. She’s going to be a really big asset for us,” Taylor said.