“This group of girls has as much, if not more, talent then any group that we’ve had coming in,” said Los Medanos College women’s volleyball head coach Lou Panzella of his team for the 2018 season. Panzanella will be in his seventh season in charge of the Volleyball team as well as also coaching men’s volleyball at both Antioch and Deer Valley High School winning the Bay Valley Athletic League title with both teams.

Panzanella believes that the strength of this team lies in the players and in the deep depth that they have unlike previous seasons.

“If we wind up losing someone to illness or something like that we have capable players ready to step in and take their chance.” Panzella said.

Apart from that, he believes this current team has the best passing and ball control that has been seen in recent memory.

The team is also surrounded with good chemistry on the court according to Panzella.

“The girls seem really enthusiastic, excited and seem to get along really well,” said Panzella.

Panzanella says there could be improvement on the offensive side to their game as well.

“We’re gonna have to improve our ability to put balls away, to get kills, to attack the ball and once we get a little bit more consistent with our attacking I think it will show in our results,” said Panzella .

According to the head coach, the Mustangs go into the gym every training session ready to put in work. His philosophy is that if you’re not getting better, you’re getting worse which is the opposite of what any player would want to do.

The Mustangs start off their season on Wednesday Sept. 12, against Yuba College at LMC.

“We look forward to the challenge of going out there and doing our best every night. You never really know how teams are going to react to the challenge until they’re against it,” said Panzanella.

He looks forward to all of the challenges that different teams are going to present throughout the season.

LMC’s non-conference record stands at 1-7 with its most recent loss coming at the hands of Cosumnes River College on Wednesday Sept. 5. The Mustangs have three non-conference games left before the start of the season.