By GERARDO RECINOS
Martinez Tribune
If you looked at the Lady Dogs game last week against Acalanes, and then again at their game against Miramonte on Tuesday night, you’d see they were basically carbon copy answers to one question.
Why were the leagues re-conferenced?
When you have a team that can line up a UC Berkeley Beach Volleyball commit like outside hitter Caroline Schafer, it’s always going to be tough. What chance did the Bulldogs have in their 3-0 loss on Sept. 20?
Schafer had a game-high 13 kills in only two sets of action against Alhambra, but teammate Blake Sharp kept the tempo up with eight of her own.
By comparison the duo of Sterling Parker and Makenzie Salva had seven and five kills respectively.
Miramonte ran their offense fluidly in the opening set of their win on Tuesday evening.
Setter Tatiana Luevano had 25 assists and made it really easy for her hitters to get on a roll early, and score often.
The Matadors opened up a 16-6 lead seemingly in no time whatsoever. The only points the Bulldogs could take away from the Mats were from one kill each from Salva, Parker and Gabby Chase. Everything else came from a mistake by the Matadors.
Set two started the same way, dominating from start to finish from the Matadors. Alhambra made some strides towards improving the score line. After going down by an unsurmountable deficit.
They didn’t exactly scare Miramonte with their play, the Matadors were still going to coast their way to victory, but the hitting improved, and defensively they weren’t as shocked by the quality of the hitting, and ended up getting some solid digs.
They made a small comeback after being down nine points, but Miramonte roared right back with a 10-2 run that was sparked a pair of aces and a pair of kills from lefty Meaghan Hohman and the start of the show, Schafer.
Without Schafer in the game in the third set, the Bulldogs were able to make a small run. They took a lead into the start of the set after a pair of kills from Erin Silva and one by Sasha Marshall.
For a brief second it looked like the Bulldogs would force their way into at least one more set, as the two teams seemed evenly matched for a brief moment. But once again the Matadors went on a long run that the Bulldogs couldn’t escape. A 7-0 run killed of any chances of forcing a fourth set.
The run was born from some mistakes from the Bulldogs, but it still showed an improvement from the earlier sets.
Miramonte finished out the set with little difficulty to close out the match. With the loss the Bulldogs fall to 6-6. The Bulldogs take on the Northgate Broncos on Sept. 22. The results from that game will be in the following edition of the Tribune.
