College of the Sequoias moved into a tie with Taft for third place in the Central Valley Conference women's volleyball race with a 3-1 victory over Reedley College on Oct. 4 in Reedley.
With the 25-19, 23-25, 25-9, 25-20 win, COS improved to 4-3 in conference action and 6-5 overall while head coach Shannon Jefferies' Tigers fell to 3-3 in the CVC and 6-8 overall.
Reedley returns to the court Friday night for a 6 pm contest in Merced against the second place Blue Devils. The Tigers' next home match is a 5 pm matchup on Wednesday, Oct. 11 against the Cerro Coso College Coyotes, who enter Friday action in a tie for fifth place with Reedley after a 3-0 loss at home to the first place Fresno City College Rams.
Against COS, sophomore Madison Gardner (Kingsburg) led the Tigers with 13 kills while freshman Madison Monis (Fowler) followed with seven. Freshman setter Katelyn Velazquez had 31 assists for Reedley while freshman Lupita Sierra (Dinuba) had six of the Tigers' 25 digs.
Sophomore libero Phoebe Todenholt (Tulare Union) had 34 digs for COS. Freshman Emily Soto (Tehachapi) led the winners with 15 kills while sophomore Payton Trimm (Mt. Whitney, Visalia) had 13.
The first set of the match was tied eight times before COS went on an 8-2 run to take control. The Tigers had their best hitting percentage in the second set win. Reedley trailed 14-9 before running off eight straight points (the last two on kills by freshman Beatriz Jimenez (Dinuba). COS rallied to tie it at 23-all before the Tigers won after a COS hitting error and a kill by Gardner.
The Tigers never led in the third set as the Lady Giants scored 10 of the first 11 points.
The final set was tied at 10-all and 17-all before COS went on a 6-1 run to take control. - Will Goldbeck