It was a busy week for Mariners Volleyball. After playing a duo of games Wednesday, College of Marin had a single game Friday and two more on Saturday. Friday and Saturday's matches were a part of the Cañada College Classic, held at Skyline College in San Bruno. The Mariners achieved a convincing victory over Bay Valley Conference rival Mendocino College in Saturday's match.
COM opened the tournament on Friday with a match against Big 8 Conference member Sierra College. The team from Rocklin was superior in size and number, but the Mariners did not go down without a fight. Sierra took the first set 25-21, but the Mariners continued to hustle and dropped the second set by a score of just 25-22. The third went to Sierra 25-17, but despite the sweep the Mariners still competed well. Alejandra Leon had 12 kills and 12 digs. Sarah Harris added nine digs and 18 assists while Alex Honsberger had 19 digs of her own.
Saturday's first game against Mendocino had the Mariners fired up and taking it out on their opposition. Marin defeated Mendocino in straight sets 25-13, 25-16 and 25-11. The balanced attack saw the team post a .146 hitting percentage with 27 kills and just 15 hitting errors. They even notching 16 service aces as a group. Leon hit .474 on the day with 11 kills and just two errors on 19 attacks. Sarah Harris had 23 assists and three aces. Emma Harris had a nice match with eight aces and five kills of her own.
The tournament's final match against MiraCosta did not go in the Mariners favor as they were swept in straight sets, 25-14, 25-15, 25-17. Sarah Harris had 10 assists, Leon had nine kills and Honsberger had six digs.
Gera was pleased with her team's performance, especially in the Mendocino match, "It was a great overall effort by the entire team. We played clean and served tough throughout the entire match." She praised the game play of Harris, "Sarah set the offense extremely well and did a great job of speeding up the offense."
Next up for the Mariners is the start of conference play at Solano on Wednesday, September 13th at 6pm.