El Camino sweeps Vaqueros 3-0

Haward Gomes had 10 kills and hit .533 on Friday night but El Camino was too much for SBCC in a 25-22, 25-21, 25-15 men's volleyball sweep in the Sports Pavilion.

Middle blocker Matt Hall added eight kills and a .467 hitting percentage and Taylor McCluskey had seven kills. The Vaqueros (9-9, 4-7 WSC) hit just .167 for the match with two aces and nine service errors.

Nehemiah Iosia topped the Warriors (10-8, 7-4) with 12 kills and Chris Phanngam had 10.

"We didn't do a good job of closing out sets," said Vaquero coach Matt Jones. "We gave up huge runs in certain rotations and a couple of those rotations were when we had three hitters in the front row. Those should be money rotations where we're siding out consistently. We had a lot of good looks that went to waste with hitting errors or poor execution.

"We had leads in both sets but if we don't execute consistently throughout the match, we're let teams back in."

The Vaqueros led 15-12 in the first set before the visitors went on a 7-2 run to grab a 19-17 advantage. SBCC got within one, 22-21, on a double contact by the Warriors but Iosia scored the last two points on a pair of kills to secure the 25-22 win.

In the second set, the Vaqueros fell behind 12-8, then went on an 11-2 burst fueled by three kills and a block from McCluskey to take a 19-4 lead. Peter Nordell came alive for the Warriors with two straight kills that sparked an 11-2 run of their own. A block and kill by Josh Riblett capped the 25-21 win.


Kyle Smiley had 21 assists for the Vaqueros and Jonathan Baldwin, who came in at setter in the second set with his team trailing 7-4, added 11.

The third set was all El Camino as they jumped ahead 6-1 on an ace by Andre Labayen and enjoyed leads of 10-3, 16-6 and 20-9.

The Vaqueros will host L.A. Pierce in their last match of the year on Friday, April 15 at 6 p.m.