Injuries have stalled the promising start to the DVC’s volleyball season. 

After a 10-0 beginning, the Vikings dropped two of the last three games, while barely edging out a win Oct. 9 against perennial conference bottom-dweller, Cosumnes River College.   

“We played against a team that is winless in conference and gave them hope of winning their first conference match,” said head coach Jackie Ponciano-Babb. “What should have been done in three sets ended up going the distance to five. But the bottom line is a win for now.” 

Middle hitter Holley Morris and setter Lilia Marcic were out recently with injuries, while Kristen Kemp and Krystal McCoy played through minor injuries. 

“Losing two really valuable players definitely took a toll on us both mentally and physically,” Kemp said.

But DVC’s momentum could be on the rise again, with Morris and Marcic returning to action in the Cosumnes game, although they looked a little rusty and a step slow, as expected, Ponciano-Babb said. 

With the entire team back, in play again, the Vikings must build back their chemistry. 

“We are going to work on that this week in practice,” Ponciano-Babb said.

With the win, DVC improves to 11-2 on the year, but just 2-2 in the Big 8 Conference after losing to Sierra and San Joaquin Delta colleges 3-1 and 3-0 respectively. 

Those losses are especially painful, because the Vikings had targeted Sierra and Delta as the teams to remain above in the Big 8 standings. 

All three teams are tied with a 2-2 conference record. 

“When looking at the scores of the games and seeing how close we were to winning, it also brought hope in that we have a well-rounded team that can compete with our conference full of high-ranked teams, even with injured players,” Kemp said.

The Vikings hosts the lowly American River Beavers on Wednesday.  

American River is coming off two straight years of winless conference games and a bad start this year with a 0-3 conference record. Its consecutive conference losses total 29. 

But after American River, the Vikings go up against the top two teams in the Big 8 – Santa Rosa Junior College on Oct. 16 at Santa Rosa and at Sacramento City College on Oct. 21 at home. 

Santa Rosa has only one conference loss, which was to Sacramento City, while Sacramento is undefeated in conference play. 

“The fact that everyone is back and healthy just means we are even more eager to take control of all our games with full potential,” Kemp said. “We’re definitely expecting to come out with every intention of winning and making it to playoffs.”