VOLLEYBALL: Lady Trojans Open Season Strong

There’s no better way to start a season then with a win at home.

And that’s just what the Milpitas High School girls volleyball team did on Thursday night by defeating Silver Creek High-San Jose 3-1.

Despite first-match jitters, the Lady Trojans started off the 2011 campaign beating the Raiders in four games in front of their home crowd.

“We came out pretty well,” said Milpitas coach Jeff Lamb. “Obviously you can tell it’s our first match of the season. A lot of ups and downs.”

The Lady Trojans came out firing in the first two games and took early leads, but the Raiders found ways to fight back and make the games interesting.

Silver Creek tied-up the score and took the lead late in both games, causing Coach Lamb to call time outs to stop the Raiders’ momentum and calm down his players.

“He told us just to relax and play hard,” said senior co-captain Jacqueline Lamb. “We all know we can play, so he just told us to go out there and play the way we know how and to relax.”

The young Milpitas squad took their coaches advice and didn’t let the late-game comebacks faze them and finished both games strong, winning 25-19 and 25-20 respectively.

The Lady Trojans took a 2-0 lead heading into the third game.

“We came out and had a nice lead in the first two games,” Coach Lamb said. “But we let them come back and take the lead. That part wasn’t good. The nice part came after that when we came back and finished those games out.”

In the third game, Silver Creek jumped to an early 6-0 lead and controlled most of the game before winning 25-9. Despite the lopsided score, Coach Lamb was impressed by his young players' ability to play well and keep their composure.

“I probably let some of our players sit too long in that game,” Coach Lamb. “But I liked the way we played and I wanted give some of our inexperienced players some playing time. Their good players, but some of their inexperienced showed and they were just nervous.”

Both teams played their best game in the fourth frame of the evening and traded leads throughout. Once again, Silver Creek erased an early deficit to tie the score, but the Lady Trojans were able to regain their lead and put away the Raiders for good.

“I think in that third game, we got a little too excited and cocky,” said junior Pilar Ferguson. “The coaches were just telling us to not give them any motivation and to keep pushing. In the fourth, it got really close, but we were still able to win and that was nice.”

Milpitas is now 1-0 overall and will play in the Spikefest tournament this weekend before its next league game at home against Live Oak on September 8.

“I’m looking forward to the tournament,” Ferguson said. “We play seven games, so it’ll help us out a lot by playing together all day.”

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