City College’s Women’s Volleyball team put the Bakersfield Renegades’ defense to the test Friday night in their home opener but lost 3-0, with the third set broken up by a 20-minute power outage. 

Head Coach Kat Niksto, who replaced long-time Vaquero Ed Gover in June, plans to put her team on the right track after starting the season 0-3.

“The first set was a little nervous, but then we settled down and worked as a team and we made some pretty big plays during the second set. I’m very proud of our team and how hard we fought back,” Niksto said.

Though the result did not reflect the Vaqueros valiant efforts, Freshmen outside hitter Lauren Holsted had some big plays throughout the game. 

“We have a great group of girls that stayed connected as a team. The communication was going really well throughout the game with no negativity just positivity only. We just had a rocky start and so we needed to change things around and start working as a team,” Holsted said.

During the game, the power went out in the Sports Pavilion, which caused a 20-minute game delay. Athletic Director Rocco Constantino and the college’s security team immediately convened to try and solve the problem.

“It was a large power outage in the city, we were worried about everyone’s safety at first. The security responded very fast. Security didn’t know how long the power was going to be out, so we had referees cancel the game, but then the power came back on,” Constantino said.

The third set resumed with Bakersfield quickly winning it 25-21. 

The Vaqueros host their second WSC Crossover match at 6 p.m Wednesday, Sep. 11 in the Sports Pavilion.