Around 70 spectators came out in support of Dig Pink Night, an event co-sponsored by LMCAS and the women’s volleyball team Oct. 11. It drew the biggest home crowd so far this season in a conference match up against the Contra Costa Comets.
“It was nice to have a big crowd here, definitely the biggest crowd we’ve had all year, we hope they come back again,” said LMC Head Coach Lou Panzella.
Dig Pink Night is more than just a volleyball game and has special meaning to Panzella.
“For me it’s about girls giving something back, the girls that are on the team are lucky, they’re healthy, they’re able to participate in collegiate sports and I think that to give something back to the community. To raise awareness of breast cancer and make a little bit of money for breast cancer, I think it’s awesome.”
The Mustangs are seemingly firing on all cylinders as they jumped to an early lead winning the first two sets 25-11 and 25-7. Battling back and forth in the third set the ‘Stangs put the Comets comeback attempt to rest with a final score 25-23.
Kianna Pinkowski had almost all of the team’s 34 assists with 32. Taylor Scriven and Michelle Mayfield combined for 28 of the team’s 34 kills. Scriven lead the way with 19 kills, while Mayfield had nine.
The 2-4 (conference), 2-7 (overall) record Comets are improving each week according to Head Coach Zachary Shrieve, who hopes the team can consistently perform as they did in the close third set.
“We get better every week, thats what we’re trying to do, from where we started from, and we try to get better… the third game is more of how we play, I hope,” said Shrieve.
Team Captain Jessica Neville felt that her team underperformed.
“At first we didn’t come out to our full potential, towards the end we picked ourselves up and had that energy to win, once we were in the flow of things, things became a lot better,” said Neville.
Dig Pink Night was a pre-cursor to Catch Pink on Oct. 26 where LMCAS will be holding another event to support the breast cancer awareness month of October.
“The Dig Pink game is a kickoff for the Oct. 26 football game, which is the Catch Pink game… we really want to advertise for everything that we’re doing involving breast cancer awareness,” said Brianna Marie-Klipp.
Everyone in the crowd who bought a cupcake also received a ticket to be in the raffle for prizes such as a Chili’s gift card.
LMCAS plans to have more events for cancer awareness that will take place the rest of the semester.
“We’re going to hold a series of different doctors and Breast Cancer Foundation speakers will be coming in, we will do it every third Wednesday…it’s just to make sure that breast cancer awareness isn’t just the month of October,” said Marie-Klipp.
Both events are in lieu of the breast cancer seminar that was scheduled to be held Oct. 12, but was canceled.
The Mustangs sit at 2-4 (conference) and 4-11 (overall) and the next home game is on October 18 at 6 p.m. where LMC will take on the College of Marin.