Late Friday night, while the sting of a loss to Vanguard remained fresh, the Mustangs retreated to their locker room. In a meeting led by the team's seniors, the group decided the performance was unacceptable, recommitting themselves to play with greater energy and accountability and to rebound faster after mistakes.
"We evaluated ourselves and what we need to do differently," said sophomore Emilye Grace Williams. "We set some goals for where we want to go from here. And we ended with, 'We can't just say all this, we have to apply it.'"
The Mustangs looked refreshed in a strong performance against San Diego Christian less than 24 hours later, beating the Hawks 3-0 on Saturday inside the MacArthur Center.
Williams led Master's with eight kills, Regan Tate followed with seven and Katie Emmerling added 19 assists.
Set scores were 25-9, 25-14 and 25-18. It was the commanding, start-to-finish performance the Mustangs (15-10, 9-5 GSAC) were seeking one night after letting a two-sets-to-none lead turn into a loss against Vanguard.
Master's was dominant for most of the evening Saturday, hitting .205 and holding the Hawks(3-19, 0-15) to a collective -.25. Jane Cisar had five total blocks and Emmerling had four.
"I think we bounced back really well," Emmerling said. "Even in that third set, when we were down a little bit, we were able to look to each other and figure out how to put the ball away."
The win helped the Mustangs remain in a tie for fifth place in the Golden State Athletic Conference standings with William Jessup. The top six teams will make next month's conference tournament, and with seventh-place Arizona Christian 3.5 matches back of Master's and Jessup, the Mustangs are in little danger of missing the postseason.
Master's will now travel to Northern California to play Menlo and William Jessup next weekend.
