After fast start, Vaqueros fall to No. 1 Irvine Valley 3-1

SBCC came out on fire on Friday night, dominating No. 1 Irvine Valley in the first set 25-13 before the Lasers came alive to post a 3-1 men's volleyball victory at the Sports Pavilion. The scores were 13-25, 25-20, 25-9, 25-20.

The 10th-ranked Vaqueros (3-8) hit .235 in the first set and .281 in the second with 11 kills and two errors. Patrick Furlong led the Lasers (8-1) with 19 kills and a .361 hitting percentage.

Sean Reynaert topped the Vaqueros with 10 kills but also had seven hitting errors for a .086 percentage. Jarrett Futch added seven kills and a .462 hitting percentage with three blocks. Jackson McDonough had seven kills and a team-high 10 digs. Kealakahi Spain produced nine digs while setter Jonathan Baldwin had 29 assists, five digs and two solo blocks.

"We played great in the first set," said SBCC coach Jon Newton. "We fell behind early in the second, then we battled back. In the third set, nothing went well and sometimes, those things happen.

"They're ranked No. 1 in the state for a reason. Defensively, they're really good and they have a lot of offensive weapons. The biggest thing we'll take away from this is after losing the third set pretty badly, we came back, battled and showed a lot of fight. It got close at the end but we just had trouble passing tonight."

SBCC enjoyed leads of 7-1, 15-6 and 20-9 on an ace by Jarrod Jordan in the opening set. The Vaqueros capped off the 25-13 win with four straight points on a kill
in the middle by Futch, a roof block by Baldwin, a combination block by Futch and Quinlan Dougherty and an ace by McDonough.

The Lasers found their rhythm in the second set, jumping ahead 5-0 on an ace by Josh Evers and taking a 16-11 lead on a backrow kill by Furlong. Reynaert slammed a kill to ignite a 9-3 run that gave the Vaqueros their first lead of the set at 20-19. IVC closed it out with a 6-0 run, capped by another ace from Evers, who had six aces in the match.

Irvine Valley grabbed leads of 9-1 and 17-5 in the third set on the way to a convincing 25-9 victory.

The Lasers led for most of the fourth set as well, going ahead 12-6 on an ace by Ruben Lopez and a long spike by the Vaqueros. SBCC trailed 16-11 and 19-13 before pulling within two (21-19) on an ace by Stephen Trevitt.

IVC scored four of the next five points to close out the match on a kill by 6-foot-8 Matt August, two aces by Furlong and a kill down off the block by August on match point.

The Vaqueros travel to Santa Monica on Wednesday at 6 p.m., then return home to host Moorpark in their WSC opener on Friday at 6 p.m.