By Kelly Jones
Record Correspondent
STOCKTON — Angelique Stepanoff was confident the Delta College volleyball team would prevail Friday.
Playing three-time defending champion Sierra, the Mustangs battled to a five-set victory, 19-25, 25-14, 26-24, 16-25, 15-10. For a few days at least, Delta stands alone atop the Big 8 Conference.
"We were going to win this game no matter what," Stepanoff said. "We'd been in five-set games before. Play to five, that's our mindset."
Stepanoff had 18 kills, three blocks and seven digs in the match. It was only the third time this season the Mustangs (15-5, 7-1 Big 8) have played to five, but they've won them all. That's a big reason they knew they could hold off the Wolverines.
Delta was tied with Sierra and American River atop the Big 8 Conference standings heading into the contest. Its only loss was to American River (6-1 Big 8, which was off Friday. Sierra (12-6, 5-2 Big 8) is now second.
The last time Delta played five games was against American River on Sept. 6. Delta fell to the Beavers in three games last week. To finish the first half of the conference schedule with Friday's triumph, and particularly to see her team play with no fear, meant a lot to head coach Molly Mordaunt-Hummel.
"I did say to them 'we've been in this position before, so use that,'" Mordaunt-Hummel said. "The fifth set is all about eliminating errors. If you look at our other sets, we kind of started off slow. The fifth game forces them to have that urgency to play to 15. They did."
Angel Lambert and Izzy Fellman each had 11 kills for Delta, which totaled a whopping 21 blocks as a team. Nine of those were by Jessica Smith who said the Mustangs backed off the net a bit after a getting caught in it too much early on.
The "fix" helped them string together four points for a 10-5 lead. She and Stepanoff teamed up to block a Sierra attack for the clincher. It was a big deal for Delta, which trailed 21-16 at one point in the third game, but rallied for the 26-24 victory.
"In the fourth game they got a good head start and we got quiet," Smith said. "It's nice to be able to flip that switch. We draw inspiration from the whole team. We're very loud, on the court or on the bench. That helped me."
The Mustangs are off Wednesday and play at Modesto JC next Friday.