The Lady Pintos battled back after dropping the first set to force a third, but ultimately fell 2-1 (25-21, 26-28, 27-25) to Smith-Cotton Monday night on senior night.
"They have nothing to be disappointed about," California head coach Julie Bailey said. "It wasn't the outcome we wanted, we wanted to win for our seniors. It was a great battle. I haven't seen a volleyball game that good in a long time. I'm just proud of the effort they put forward and they never gave up."
California jumped out in the first set with a 9-3 lead with the help of an early 7-0 run, but allowed the Lady Tigers to tie at 10 midway through the set. The set stayed close with seven separate ties before Smith-Cotton took the 22-21 lead, then scored four-straight points to win the set 25-21.
"Not sure I can remember the first set," Bailey said with a laugh.
The second set was even closer than the first. It featured 14 ties, but Smith-Cotton never actually led in the set until it was 25-24. California scored the next four out of five points to force the deciding third set.
Adrienne Strickfaden recorded a kill to tie the game at 25, then Cameron Meyer and Strickfaden had a kill and block on back-to-back points to win the set.
"Adrienne had some huge blocks and we just tried to use our middles as much as we could," Bailey said. "I told them we had to get the middles the ball because they were a smaller team not able to block Adrienne and Ashtyn's hits."
Strickfaden led the team with 12 kills, Ashtyn was second with 10, Meyer added eight as the entire team totaled 38 kills.
"All six of our girls that play front row can hit the ball and we have several girls that hit the ball and read the court really well," Bailey said. "Ashtyn is really good at reading the court, and Adrienne can read the court, but she doesn't have to because she hits the ball so hard it's hard for people to return her hits."
The third set had a lot of back and forth action early, with six ties before the teams reached double digits. After Strickfaden blocked a Lady Tigers shot to tie the game at 12, Smith-Cotton scored five-straight to take a 17-12 lead. Strickfaden and Gracie George recorded back-to-back kills to cut the Lady Tigers' lead to 20-19, then George had another kill and Meyer had back-to-back kills to give California a 22-21 advantage.
The two teams score two-straight points each, then Smith-Cotton won four of the next five points to win the set 27-25 and the match 2-1.