Darryl Harvey
Manhattan Beach, CA - On a frigid day at the beach, the LMU Women's volleyball team defeated the University of Texas Longhorns 4-2 in the East Meets West Invitational. The pairs Abbey Thorup/Lisa Luini, Isabelle Reffel/Magdalena Rabitsch, Tanon Rosenthal/Guila Poletti and Jaeya Brach/Ingrid Johnson collectively won their matches to give the Lions the victory over the Longhorns.
Giula Poletti, LMU graduate student, felt very composed going into the match. She said, “We feel very confident. We are very excited to hop in the sand and show what we are made of.” In terms of facing the elements, Poletti said, “I think we are very adaptable as a team and we’ve been practicing with this weather for the past week and even more. I think in beach volleyball you have to be aware of it and use it to your advantage.”
During the match up of the two’s, Chloe Hooker and Anna Pelloia battled through the elements. This match was neck and neck to start. Pelloia was showing both power and finesse on her serves and hits. Emma Robertson and Katie Hashman for UT showed great chemistry as a tandem. They had a slight advantage in this one and seemed like the more cohesive pair. During the match there was lots of cheering with teammates uplifting each other. Pelloia was moving her fingers behind her back to communicate with Hooker which led to a point. There was a great sequence for LMU where Hooker dove on the ground and Pelloia finished with the point over the net. Ultimately, the UT two’s won this match 2-1.
Assistant coach Cesar Benatti, weighed in on the strategy for the two’s in the postgame interview: “We played two really good hitters. Trying to figure out who we were going to target first. We had a hard time stopping them. Trying to figure out how to apply the best serving strategy with our defense. They played well.”
During the match up of the one’s, Michelle Shaffer and Vilhelmiina Prihti began the match with clever hits that led to points for LMU. Tactical defense led to offense as well for LMU. Shaffer was very skilled and appeared to look one way and slice the ball in another direction for a point. The Longhorn one’s, Chloe Charles and Eva Kuivonen, were in unison and communicating well in the sand. Texas was able to win the first set. With the help of the crowd and power attacks from Charles, the Longhorns were able to come back from a 18-7 deficit in the second set to win the match 23-21. As a result, the Longhorn one’s won this match 2-0, but the LMU Lions won the series 4-2.
Overall, Benatti was happy with the victory. He said, “We won the matches that we could and we got a good win against a very good team. We lost on the two’s and one’s but we won the three’s, four’s, fives and sixes pretty handily. So, in beach volleyball you want to win three matches so we got it done.”