SAN DIEGO — The San Diego Mojo didn’t flinch under the lights of Viejas Arena. Not against the league‑leading Indy Ignite. Not in a match that swung back and forth for more than two hours. And not in a fifth set where every point was earned with a fight.
Indy ultimately escaped with a 3–2 win (25–20, 19–25, 22–25, 25–19, 15–9), but the Mojo made them earn every inch.
“We just played some really good volleyball tonight,” head coach Alisha Childress said afterward. “The energy was really good… we had them on their heels at moments, they had us on ours, and I think that’s what we want to see out of volleyball.”
Indy opened with a clean, efficient first set, hitting .300 to San Diego’s .214. The Mojo kept pace early, tied at 8–8 and 16–16, but a late Ignite push created just enough separation for a 25–20 Indy win. Still, the Mojo’s offense was already humming. Grace Loberg and Allison Jacobs combined for early kills that previewed the firepower to come.
San Diego flipped the script in Set 2, tightening their block‑defense and hitting .235 with just two errors. Loberg found her rhythm on the left pin, and the Mojo’s first‑ball sideout rate jumped to 53%, their best of the night. The 25–19 win evened the match and ignited the home crowd.
Grace Loberg in the air, hitting the ball. Miguel Mejia/Miguel Mejia Photography
Set 3 was the grind-it-out volleyball Childress loves. The Mojo trailed 5–8 and 12–16, but their response was textbook resilience. A late push, fueled by Marin Grote’s quick attacks and Taylor Sandbothe’s presence at the net, carried San Diego to a 25–22 comeback win.
The Mojo held Indy to just .047 attack efficiency in the third frame, one of their best defensive stretches of the season .
Indy steadied in the fourth, hitting .342 while limiting San Diego’s point‑scoring percentage to 30%. The Mojo stayed within striking distance, 15-16 at the midway point, but the Ignite’s block began to close seams, forcing a decisive fifth set as the Ignite won it, 25-19.
The final frame opened with Indy jumping ahead 6–0, a gap the Mojo fought to close but couldn’t fully erase. San Diego hit just .036 in the fifth, while Indy’s efficiency climbed to .240. Even so, the Mojo kept swinging. Loberg, who finished with a team‑high 20 points and 16 digs, continued to carry the scoring load. Shara Venegas also had 16 digs on the night, to tie the team-high with Loberg.
“We’re constantly finding ways to score,” she said. “Obviously we wanted it to go our way, but… we fought really hard and it could’ve gone either way.”
The Mojo continue the season with their next game on April 11, here at home at Viejas Arena against the Orlando Valkyries at 6 p.m.
Top Photo: Grace Loberg with the kill. Miguel Mejia/Miguel Mejia Photography
Volleyball Statistics
Hitting Efficiency/Attack Efficiency: Kills minus hitting errors divided by the total number of hitting attempts. (Number of Kills - Number of hitting errors)/Total number of hitting attempts
Point-Scoring Percentage: Total points won while serving divided by total serves.
First-ball Sideout Rate: Total points won while receiving and killing the ball on the first attack. Calculated as number of first ball kills (while receiving) divided by the total number of serves received.
