On Friday in San Bernardino, the Golden Eagles defeated Sonoma State with ease, beating them 3-1 in the semifinal matchup of the CCAA tournament. Outside hitter Karla Santos had an impressive match with 12 kills, 6 aces and 12 digs. Setter Shea McGovern contributed 26 assists, and the team had a total of 12 aces in the match.
Head Coach Juan Figueroa talked about the aces the team had in a post-match press conference. “It was great, it was a part of our game plan of you know just to serve, but we just stuck to the game plan and we saw the results of it.”
In the first set of the match, the Eagles set the tone starting off with a service ace by McGovern. A combination of another service ace by McGovern, a kill by middle blocker Daisy Crenshaw and attack errors by Sonoma State allowed the Eagles to take advantage and win the first set 25-20.
Crenshaw said about the team’s fast start: “We usually start off really slow, so [for] this game the plan was to start off as soon we got on the court, and we won the first set which usually doesn’t happen.”
Despite losing the second set, the Eagles took both the third and fourth sets.
In the third set McGovern took advantage of an attack error by Sonoma State, and a service error by the Seawolves ballooned into an 8-0 scoring run by the Golden Eagles. The black and gold took the third set 25-14.
Cal State LA would go on to win the fourth set 25-21 with the final kill coming from Santos off an assist from McGovern.
Cal State LA will play for the conference title against the number one seeded Cal State San Bernardino at its home gym in San Bernardino. The Coyotes are undefeated this season.
