Yu-better recognize

Slow starts have become a common occurrence for the Yuba City High volleyball team, and Tuesday night's Tri-County Conference match against Inderkum was no different.

Thanks to some early unforced errors against an athletic Tigers team that came into Honker Gym primed for an upset, Yuba City fell behind 19-12 in the first game and dropped a thrilling opening set 32-30.

However, good teams always seem to have a knack for pulling out a win even when they're performing at their best, and led by the play of Taylor Thompson and Katie Reiland, the Honkers overcame their slow start and battled back to earn a five-set 30-32, 25-18, 25-5, 23-25, 15-7 victory.

The win improves the Honkers (19-9) to a perfect 7-0 in TCC play heading into Thursday's game at second-place Pioneer. Yuba City then wraps up its regular season at home against Pioneer again on Monday before meeting rival River Valley in the finale on Tuesday.

"I don't know what it is, but sometimes we get off to a slow start," Yuba City coach Amy Lopez said. "It always seems like it takes us a while to warm up."

The Honkers warmed up quickly after falling behind early and made the first game extremely close. On no fewer than eight occasions, both teams had shots to win the opening game, only to see the other battle back and prolong it.

Inderkum eventually pulled out the first set, but it only served as a wake-up call for the Honkers, who went on to dominate the majority of the match.

"We just always get off to a slow start, but once we picked up the momentum, we started to get balls in and serve better," said Thompson, the Honkers' senior captain. "We just got more intense and once we do that we start playing better. It's all about us coming together as a team."

Yuba City breezed past Inderkum in the second and third sets and then jumped ahead 6-1 in the fourth before eight unforced errors allowed the Tigers to rally back and force a deciding fifth game.

That's when the Honkers played their best ball of the night.

Thompson opened the set with a kill for a quick 1-0 lead and when Annabel Mendoza smashed seven straight service points — including three aces — the match was all but over.

Thompson smoked six kills in the final stanza and Reiland added three of her own — including the game-winner — as the Honkers celebrated another victory toward their push to the Sac-Joaquin Section Division III playoffs.

"We knew Inderkum would come out strong tonight," Lopez said. "The intensity wasn't there early, but they knew that it was do or die in that second game and they came out and played well."

Thompson led the Honkers with 17 kills, while Reiland chipped in with 13. Mendoza finished with 10 kills, 15 digs and seven aces, Katie Haymore added five kills and four assists, setter Tori Thomas had 46 assists and libero Jacqueline Van Ruiten finished another solid match with a team-high 37 digs for the Honkers.