The City College beach volleyball team fell short to Mt. San Antonio 5-0 in the first ever intercollegiate women’s volleyball match at East Beach.

A discrepancy for this game was expected for City College due to the team’s lack of in-game experience and an uncontrolled loss.

Before the match began, City College was forced to forfeit the number five team match due to lack of players.

This was Mt. SAC’s fifth game of the season.

Sophomore players McKenzie Garrison and Grace Trocki competed in match number one, losing 21-16 and 21-11 to Mt. SAC’s Juliana Gomez and Samantha Neely.

Both Vaqueros players have had impressive two-year careers on the indoor team for Santa Barbara, but this was their first time teaming up as a duo.

“It was pretty exciting to play our first match ever,” Garrison said.

Garrison played club volleyball for the team last year but said the nerves of the first game still struck her.

“Oh yeah, I was really nervous when we started playing,” she continued.

Looking to improve for the next match Garrison said they needed to work on “serve receive, serving aggressively, calling the shots and making the shots.”

Jacque Ortegon and Emma Esparza played the number two match and led 9-6 in the second set. The set went back and forth until a timeout was called at 18-all. The game was then sealed by Malia Carr and Shaiann Palos, who grabbed the final 3 points to end it.

For some Vaqueros players, this was their first ever official beach game of their careers, not playing on the club team in recent years.

“A lot of the players were really nervous,” head coach Samantha Calisto said. “But they competed really well and were excited to get back to practice.”

The first ever match at East Beach was dominantly won 21-10 and 21-14 by Mt. SAC players Lindsey Lane and Alysha Tullar, competing against Vaqueros players Lilly Eaves and Annie Rodgers.

The match being played simultaneously on the other net was won by Mounties players Macy Barnes and Jessica Morse, 21-12 and 21-11. The City College duo Maddie Meyer and Michelle Orgel went on some early runs, but unfortunately, they were not enough to stop the dominant runs at the end of both matches by the Mounties.

“Teams three and four did a great job of competing,” Coach Calisto said. “It was good to see how excited they were to get back to practice.”

Moving forward Calisto says the practices will pull away from focusing on conditioning to a  more in-game environment.

The Vaqueros play their next home game versus Marin at 9 a.m. on March 19 at East Beach.

The final match scores are listed below on the City College game recap here.