Bakersfield College’s volleyball team missed the playoffs after finishing the season winning seven out of its last eight games.
The Renegades most recent win came 3-0 against a lowly 0-17 West L.A. team.
BC ended the season with a second-place finish in conference with a record of 9-3 conference and 16-8 overall.
Before the win against West L.A., BC traveled to face then No. 1 team L.A Pierce.
The Renegades ended up beating Pierce 3-2 (25-22, 20-25, 25-21, 17-25, 15-12), which was to be a quality win on the team’s resume come playoffs selection.
Sophomore Mary Maiocco was working when she found out about the team’s snub for playoffs.
“Well, our coach found out on Sunday, but I was at work actually, but I was checking my phone every ten minutes waiting for a text message,” she said.
“My mom actually texted me first telling me we didn’t make it, then coach texted me. I was really upset and well, just pissed.”
BC felt the win against Pierce and their solid record would be able to get them in although the seeding has much to do with earlier tournaments.
“It all came down to how we did in the beginning of the season when we went to the San Diego Tournament and the L.A. Pierce tournament,” Maiocco said. “We lost to teams that we could have beat probably now, and because of that other teams got to go even if they had a worse record than we did.”
She was referring to the selection of 10 seed Golden West (9-12) and 14 seed Canyons (14-9).
Maiocco, being one of the more experienced players on the roster, had a feeling that the selection could go either way.
“I don’t want to say we had a gut feeling that we weren’t going to make it just because I know how significant the beginning of the season was, but it was just kind of like a ‘darn, but we beat the number one team’ and I thought that would have been good enough,” she said.
Head coach Carl Ferreira held a team meeting the following day after the playoff announcements.
Maiocco said the meeting was to discuss what happened and to discuss the season from a look-back standpoint.
“In our meeting we had to say one thing we were appreciative for,” she said. “Not only was I appreciative for my team but the experience they gained.
“I let them know, now you know how the season goes and how important it is to win in the beginning and keep up momentum throughout the whole season. Tournaments like that are very significant,” she said.