MOSES LAKE - The Big Bend Community College (BBCC) volleyball team hosted Yakima Valley Community College last night, hoping to end a three game losing streak, and salvage a little pride. But it wasn't in the cards as the Vikings lost the match in four sets (25-23, 21-25, 10-25, 16-25).

The loss drops BBCC's record to 1-11 and 8-23 overall in the NWACC West standings.

"I thought we did some things really well tonight," coach Mike De Hoog said. "We served well in game one, at the end of game two and the beginning of game four. But we just aren't playing very consistent volleyball and that's what hurt us."

BBCC got off on the right foot in the first match, taking an 11-6 lead, but the Yaks fought back to tie the score 18-18. But DeHoog took a time out to settle the team and the girls responded with a 7-5 run to pull out the first set, 25-23.

"Our hitters did a good job of finding the open spots on the floor," DeHoog said. "And we played solid defense and that contributed to the win in game one."

The second set of the match was a battle of wills between the two teams as YVCC took an early 5-3 lead and pushed the score to 23-15. But a determined Vikings squad went on a 6-0 run to close the gap 23-21. It looked as though momentum had swung to BBCC's side, but the Yaks scored two points out of a time out to take the game 25-21, and even the match at one set each.

"We put together a pretty good run to get within two points at the end of the game," DeHoog said. "I thought we were going to pull it out, but we couldn't close it."

The Vikings got the first point of the third set, but several mental mistakes allowed YVCC to take an 11-4 lead. BBCC's Emily Vaarstra stopped the bleeding with a kill shot to close the gap to 12-6, but the Yaks went on a roll and outscored the Vikings 13-4 to win the set 25-10 and take a 2-1 lead.

"We weren't communicating very well in the third game," De Hoog said. "We made some errors and had a lot of little things go wrong and we lost game three as well."

Game four of the match saw BBCC jump out front 10-7, but the Yaks battled back to tie the score 11-11. The score was knotted again at 14-14, however, YVCC went on an 11-3 spurt to push the lead to 22-14. A miss serve by the Yaks Tori Faria gave the ball back to the Vikings, who put a point on the board to get draw closer at 22-15. But the YVCC scored three of the next four points to put BBCC game away 25-16 and take the match 3-1.

"On the positive side of things, I was really pleased with the first game of the match," De Hoog said. "That was an example of how we are capable of playing. The results of the other games, however, is evidence of our youth."

Despite the teams record of 1-11 in league play, DeHoog said the girls made a lot of strides this season.

"If you just look at wins and losses in the standings, things don't appear so good," he said. "But if you measure how far the team has improved over last year, the girls have come a long way and I am really proud of them.

BBCC plays its last regular home game of the season against Walla Walla Friday at 6.p.m. The Vikings end the year on the road against last years defending NWACC champion Blue Mountain.

"Both of those teams are really tough, but we played well against them earlier in the year," De Hoog said. "We'll work hard on blocking the ball in practice this week and be ready to play."