The Fullerton College volleyball team remained undefeated with a 3-1 (25-14, 19-25, 25-22, 26-24) win over the Orange Coast College Pirates. With the win, the Hornets improve to 9-0 (2-0), and make a case to improve their number four ranking in the state.

Coming into the match, OCC (6-1, 1-1) was ranked sixth in the state and third in the Orange Empire Conference. The Hornets are the second ranked team in the OEC, behind Golden West.

FC came out of the gate hot and jumped out to a 12-3 lead. The early effort was lead by Brianna Cervantes, who had four kills in the first 12 points. The Hornets slowed down a little bit, but still took the set in a commanding fashion.

Orange Coast came out strong in the second set, and the Hornets looked sloppy. As the Pirates tightened their game up in the second, the Hornets began to make errors and have communication problems.

“They [the Pirates] stopped making as many errors,” said Eddie Rapp, FC head coach. “They began to settle down and put pressure on us defensively.”

The Hornets came out on fire in the third set, and jumped out to an 11-6 lead. However, Orange Coast battled back and tied the set 20-20. The Hornets were able to regroup and go on a 5-2 run to close out the set.

The fourth and final set was close early, but the Pirates went on a 10-2 run as the Hornets made more errors. Behind 9-15, the match seemed to be heading to a fifth set, but the Hornets continued to battle back.

Sophomore Madeline Barrett led the comeback effort in the fourth. Barrett had seven of her 16 kills in that set alone. She also added 20 digs throughout the match.

With the score 21-23, the longest rally of the match took place. Both teams were getting strong hits, but each time the defenses were there to answer.

After, what seemed like minutes, Orange Coast hit the ball out of bounds and all the momentum was on Fullerton’s side. The match was tied at 24-24 and the Pirates picked up a net violation to make it 25-24. Freshman Alyssa Jensen then got the final kill of the match.

“We fought really hard tonight,” said Celeste Snider, Hornet sophomore libero. “Now we need to get ready to go into Saddleback and go hard again.”

Snider continued her impressive defensive season with 30 digs in the game, bringing her total to 176 on the season.

The Hornets will look to improve to 10-0 when they take on Saddleback on Friday, at 6 p.m.