The Bakersfield College volleyball team made its home debut Sept. 5 by hosting Antelope Valley, Grossmont and Santa Barbara City College in the Bakersfield Quad Tournament. The Renegades went 0-2 in the tournament.

The Renegades came into the tournament with a 3-1 record after a nice start to the season at the L.A. Pierce Tournament on Aug. 28-29 (full recap on therip.com).

Only losing two starters from last year, Tyler Herring and Kourtney Grantz, this year’s team has a strong foundation of veteran leaders and new-coming talent.

BC is returning five key players from last year’s squad and the team has no shortage of players with game experience. The returning players are: Kayla Romero (outside hitter), Lorena Ramirez (libero), Jade Delgadillo (setter), Stephanie Lugo (outside hitter), and finally Genesis Enriquez (middle blocker).

“We have a much deeper team than last year’s for sure. They are improving each week with better competition. I’m looking forward to a great season from our girls,” head coach Carl Ferreira said.

The competition was clearly a challenge this past weekend as BC lost both of its matches.

BC faced off with Santa Barbara for the first match of the day. BC sophomore and outside hitter Daryan Heathcott led the way with 22 total kills in the match and setting the pace for BC’s offense throughout the day. Solid play from sophomore Ramirez and freshman defensive specialist Hannah Pope held SBCC hitters down with 20 and 15 digs, respectively.

With both teams coming out strong in the opening match, neither team was ever able to grab a commanding lead in the first sets splitting the first four sets, 2-2. However, BC would eventually fall to SBCC in the fifth set, losing the match with scores of 25-18, 20-25, 25-19, 23-25, 15-12 in the final set.

Facing Grossmont in their second and last match of the day, the Renegades had their hands full with their opponents who finished last season in the final four.

Starting strong after their earlier loss to SBCC, BC used strong teamwork to keep it close, rallying from six down in the first set to even the score at 19-19 in the first set. However, the front line of Grossmont proved too strong as they defeated BC, 25-23.

Continuing her strong play from the first match, Heathcott led the team with 18 more kills in the match. Her efforts were not enough as the girls could only manage one win in the match losing to Grossmont 3-1.

“Volleyball isn’t like football or basketball where you get huge amounts of space which allows for better athletes to take over,” Ferreira said. “This is a team sport in its entirety; we play on a 30×30-sized court. We need to play better as a unit this year.”

The Renegades fell to 3-3 on the season and will resume their season at the San Diego Mesa Tournament in San Diego on Sept.11-12 and will return home Sept. 22 where they’ll face Moorpark College at 6 p.m. inside the Gil Bishop Sports Center.