Bakersfield College’s volleyball team traveled to San Diego to participate in the 30th annual San Diego Mesa Invitational hosted by Mesa College on Sept. 11 and 12 prior to Tuesday’s matchup with Moorpark (recap on therip.com). The team finished the weekend with a 1-2 record dropping them to 4-5 overall on the season.

Beginning on Sept. 11, the team faced off against KCCD rival Cerro Coso Community College for their only match of the day. Cerro Coso was easily defeated in three straight sets by BC: 14-25, 13-25, 12-25. Using a more balanced attack, BC had four players with at least four kills. Leading the way were outside hitters Daryan Heathcott with 15 and Mackenzie Hernandez with 11. Hernandez also seemed to see the floor well setting her teammates up with 25 assists in the match.

In day two of the tournament on Sept. 12, BC moved on to face a familiar foe in Grossmont who had just beaten the Renegades a week earlier on BC’s floor.

Although BC came out strong in the first set of the match they were unable to finish off Grossmont losing the set, 25-23. This proved to be the closest BC came to victory eventually losing the next two sets with scores of 16-25 and 13-25.

Continuing her strong play, points leader Heathcott finished the match with 12 kills. However the rest of the offense never got going as BC struggled to score points combining for only 25 kills between the team against 41 for Grossmont.

Grossmont later went on to the finals to face LA Pierce Community College where they lost two-of-three sets.

For their final match of the weekend BC faced tournament host San Diego Mesa in the third place match.

Starting strong, the Mesa team took the early lead in the first two sets with scores of 25-20 and 25-19. BC rallied to even the match at 2-2 winning the next two sets 25-18 and 25-20 to force a fifth and deciding set to determine the winner.

Showing an improved team defense after the third set – the Renegades – led by sophomore libero Lorena Ramirez (22 digs in match) stayed close with Mesa but eventually lost the fifth set with a score of 15-11 and the match.

BC (4-5), who is currently ranked 22nd in the state in the latest state rankings via cccaasports.org, took a 10-day long break before resuming play at home against Moorpark College (2-4, 23rd in the state) on Sept. 22 at 10 a.m.