No. 3 Long Beach rallies to beat No. 4 Vaqueros, 3-2

SBCC took a 2-1 lead at Long Beach on Wednesday night, then the Vikings rallied to take the last two sets and pull out a 3-2 men's volleyball win. The scores were 25-9, 18-25, 23-25, 29-27, 15-10.

Long Beach, ranked No. 3 in the state, improves to 10-3 overall and 5-1 in the WSC. The fourth-ranked Vaqueros fell to 7-5 and 3-3. Santa Barbara has dropped 3-2 decisions in three of its last five matches and the losses came to the state's top three ranked teams.

The Vikings built leads of 8-4, 11-6 and 13-8 in the decisive fifth set. They out the Vaqueros .333 to .235 in Set 5 and .239 to .173 for the match. Long Beach also won the blocking battle, 11.0 to 6.5.

Calvin Sanborn led the Vaqueros with a season-high 24 kills. Trent Lingruen added 17 and Blake Lockhart had nine kills and a match-high 12 digs. Aaron Letvin dished out a season-best 48 assists to go along with eight digs and three aces.

"Another tough fifth set," said coach Jon Newton. "They are a good athletic team with fast arms and a fast offense. When they get going, they are good. After the first set, I thought we did a good job of settling in and playing our volleyball.

The Vaqueros did their best hitting in set No. 2 with a .400 percentage and just four errors. They led 8-4, 16-9 and 21-11 on a kill by Lingruen off a set from Sanborn. The left-handed Sanborn capped the 25-18 victory with a kill.

In Set 3, the visitors erased deficits of 16-10 and 21-17. The Vaqueros closed on an 8-2 run, capped by a kill from Sanborn and back-to-back aces by Letvin that produced a 25-23 victory.

The fourth set was tight throughout with 14 ties up to 20-20. The Vikings took a 24-22 lead before the Vaqueros tied it at 24 on kill by Lingruen and an LBCC hitting error. Long Beach had five set points, including three of SBCC service errors. The Vikings finally pulled out a 29-27 overtime win on a kill by Anema and a Vaquero attack error.

"We still have a lot of volleyball left in the season and a lot of room to keep improving," said Newton.

The Vaqueros hope to avenge one of their 3-2 setbacks on Friday when Moorpark comes to the Sports Pavilion for a 6 p.m. match. The Raiders beat the Vaqueros 18-16 in the fifth set on Feb. 27 at Moorpark.