Men's volleyball team wins second straight to start season
Feb 10, 2007
The Irvine Valley men's volleyball team won its second straight match to start the season.
The Lasers won at Santa Monica Friday night, 30-21, 30-15, 30-32, 31-29.
Freshman outside hitter Peter Johnson led the way with 20 kills on 24 attempts and only two errors in three games.
"He was incredible," Irvine Valley Coach Tom Pestolesi said of Johnson. "He really picked us up in the fourth game when were not looking too good."
Irvine Valley was down by four points most of the fourth game and trailed late, 26-24, but went on a 7-3 run to close out the match.
Irvine Valley played very well in games one and two and halfway into the third game. The Lasers led, 28-25, in the third game before losing.
But Irvine Valley answered back in the fourth game and freshman outside hitter Marcus Fernandez had the game-winner after a dig by freshman libero Sean Grubbs.
Fernandez finished with 16 kills and eight digs. Freshman middle blocker Bryan Simmons added 13 kills and six blocks and freshman middle blocker Ted Slaughter had nine kills.
"We missed a lot of serves again (24), but we will improve on that," Pestolesi said. "We passed a 2.37 as a team, which is great and Marcus (Fernandez) was at a 2.52. And I thought (setter) Tyler Rex really spread the ball around."
IVC hit .445 as a team and Rex had 59 assists and four digs.
Irvine Valley hosts Los Angeles Pierce this Wednesday in a non-conference match at 2 p.m.