Cuesta Women's Volleyball kept its playoff hopes alive with a five-set upset over #10 Los Angeles Mission (25-23, 16-25, 25-16, 23-25, 16-14).  The Cougars, who scored only 55 points when they were swept by the Eagles in their first meeting (Oct 17), came out and surprised the Eagles by going point-for-point in the first set.  After LA Mission finally jumped out 15-12, the Cougars roared back to tie it up at 16-16 and took their first lead, at 19-18.  After trading the lead a couple of times, they knotted-up at 23-23, before the Cougars closed out the set, 25-23.  The Eagles regrouped in the next set and went wire-to-wire to even the match, 25-16, only to have the Cougars regain their advantage by the same score in the third set, 25-16.  Down, 2-1, Mission rolled through Cuesta to open the 4th set, 22-16, only to have the Cougars rally and fight off four set points, before LA Mission forced a 5th and final set, 25-23.  In the tiebreaker, it was more of the same, as the two foes split the first 28 points, until the Cougars closed out the match, 16-14.  The setback was only the fourth loss of the season for LA Mission (23-4), with two of them coming against #7 Santa Barbara and one to #8 Moorpark, while the Cougars pushed their overall record back over .500 (13-12) and kept their post-season dreams alive for another week.  The Cougars are chasing their first playoff berth since 2021.  

Cuesta's Spikers shall travel to Bakersfield this Friday (6 PM) for a Western State Conference Crossover (WSC) Match against the host Renegades.  The teams in both the WSC-North and WSC-South Divisions conclude their regular season by playing the team in the other division with their same ranking to sort the conference to aid post-season seeding.  The Renegades sit in 5th place in the WSC-South, which is the designated host for odd years.   

Cuesta Coach Whitney Meyer reached a milestone in the Cougars' upset of #10 Los Angeles Mission, as she achieved her 100th career victory.  Meyer, who was a two-time all-Conference player for the Cougars, before joining Coach Roche Nystrom's staff as an assistant, took over the program in 2017.   Nystrom stepped down shortly after her program record 300th win and handed the clipboard to Meyer.  Meyer also mentors the Cougars' Beach Volleyball squad.