Cats win 7th straight

The Saddleback women's volleyball team won its seventh straight game with a 3-1 victory over Orange Coast College on Friday night inside the gymnasium.  The Bobcats have two games remaining in trying to end a 25-year, conference-title drought.

Saddleback was looking to stay hot on Friday, entering with a six-game winning streak and leading perennial power Irvine Valley by a half game in the Orange Empire Conference (OEC) standings with just a handful of games remaining.  The Bobcats kept the momentum rolling, improving to 17-4 overall and 12-2 in the OEC.  The 17 wins is the most for the program since winning 24 in 1998 and the program hasn't won a conference title since 1997.

Saddleback opened with a 25-17 win in game one to send Orange Coast an early message.  The Pirates responded with a 25-19 win in game two to even the match.

Saddleback trailed in the third set 17-13 when the offense finally kicked things back into high gear.  A kill from Stila Fresenius sparked the offense, which proceeded to rattle off 12 of the next 18 points in stealing the third set (25-23).  Orange Coast would never recover, as the Bobcats cruised to a 25-13 win in the final game of the night.

Saddleback has two games remaining on the regular season, starting with a road match at Golden West on Wednesday (6 PM).  The Bobcats will return home next Friday to face Cypress College (6 PM).