Saints click and crush Hillcrest Christian

By Hannah Hughes --

I’m not a volleyball player. I play basketball.

But on Tuesday, I was hungry. Every time the ball came over the net, I wanted to go towards the it. I always wanted to try spiking.

In the second set, I got the spike I wanted. I got so excited, and so did my team.

Lighthouse Christian Academy of Santa Monica won in three straight sets against Hillcrest Christian School of Thousand Oaks 25-12, 25-15 and 15-8 (the last set was shortened due to time).

It seems like my spike, my first ever, shot an injection of motivation into the team.

In our previous games, we weren’t real coordinated or motivated. Our communication wasn’t great. We didn’t rally around the points we scored. We got bummed and discouragement paralyzed us.

But we’ve been practicing with the expert coaching of Xiovana Moraida, who was a soccer star at Santa Monica College. I don’t know how she got into volleyball. Felipe Rodriguez, a baseballer and former umpire from Santa Monica's pony league, is like an assistant coach with cheers of encouragement.

Yeah, that doesn’t make sense. We’re basically coached in volleyball by a soccer player and a baseball player.

Anyhow, it worked Tuesday.

My friend Laken Wilson, like me a sophomore, landed a lot of aces in the early part of the game to crush our opponents. Sarah Montez, another classmate and friend, was lofting sets for the spiking crew.

Rudee Becerra, a senior and our captain, smashed home serves and exhorted the team to communication.

This is my first year playing volleyball. My friends persuaded me even though I was originally skeptical.

Now, volleyball makes me feel happy because when I play I’m free of stress and from whatever I’m going through. I feel excited to play.