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Men's volleyball team beats Grossmont, earns share of conference title
Apr 18, 2007
It wasn't easy, or very pretty for that matter.
The Irvine Valley men's volleyball team could care less. The Lasers will take the win and the title.
Irvine Valley, made up of 11 freshmen and one sophomore, capped a late season run to the Pacific Coast Conference crown with a five-game, 31-33, 30-26, 22-30, 30-28, 18-16 victory over Grossmont Wednesday night at home.
The victory in the regular season finale, which was the Lasers' sixth straight win, earned Irvine Valley a share of the conference title with Orange Coast. It also gave Irvine Valley (because of tiebreakers) the No. 1 seed out of the conference for the playoffs.
And that is big because the top-seeded team out of the Pacific Coast Conference and Western State Conference earn direct berths into the state tournament, which will be held April 27-28 at Santa Monica College. The semifinals will be played Friday night with the championship final on Saturday.
"From day one our goal was to make it to the last weekend (the state tournament)," Irvine Valley Coach Tom Pestolesi said. "And now that we've made it we want to go and get a couple of more (wins)."
It will be Irvine Valley's third straight trip to the state tournament. IVC lost in the semifinals the previous two years.
The conference title is Irvine Valley's second straight. IVC won the Orange Empire Conference championship a year ago.
Pestolesi admitted that his team wasn't at its best against Grossmont, but the Lasers still did enough for the victory.
They led, 22-15, in the first game, but couldn't hold on and ended up losing, 33-31.
The Lasers got back in the match in game two. The Lasers held a 23-22 lead and then scored three straight points, two coming off kills by freshman outside hitter Marcus Fernandez, to take control.
Irvine Valley made it a 28-23 lead on a kill by freshman outside hitter Peter Johnson. Johnson got some help on the play from teammates Sean Grubbs and Rory Jones, who each made diving digs to keep the point alive.
Ahead, 29-26, Johnson put the game away with a kill.
The third game was tight early. Not more than two points separated the teams until Grossmont took a 20-17 lead on a kill by Armando Lopez.
Grossmont was up, 22-20, and then went on a 6-0 run to put the game away.
Down, two games to one, Irvine Valley battled to a tough win in game four. The Lasers led for most of the game, but had trouble putting it away at the end. The Lasers were up, 29-25, but Grossmont scored three straight points to make things interesting. Two of the points came on IVC errors.
But Johnson came through with a kill at 29-28 to give the Lasers the game and send the match into a fifth and final frame.
Both teams had chances to come out on top. The fifth game was tied at 8-8, 9-9, 10-10, 11-11, 12-12 13-13, 14-14, 15-15 and 16-16.
Grossmont had a match point at 14-13, but Johnson came through with a kill for IVC from the left side to tie things at 14-14.
IVC had match points at 15-14 and 16-15, but Grossmont answered with kills each time.
Tied 16-16, Johnson knocked a kill off the Griffin block to set up IVC's third match point.
And then Johnson served an ace to give Irvine Valley the game and match and set off the celebration.
"I am happy for the guys," Pestolesi said. "They have worked hard. They put the time and effort in and good things happened. It is a neat time for them."
Johnson led the way for IVC with a career-high 28 kills. He has led IVC in kills in 16 of 18 matches this season.
Peter Johnson
"Peter just came up huge for us tonight," Pestolesi said. "We needed every one of his 28 kills. His kill on their match point was our biggest one of the night."
Freshman outside hitter Marcus Fernandez added a season-high 16 kills.
"The last month he has played really well," Pestolesi said. "We typically take him out in the back row, but we kept him in there tonight and he kept coming up with plays for us."
Several other players did as well.
Freshman middle blocker Bryan Simmons contributed 10 kills and four blocks, freshman middle blocker Ted Slaughter had nine kills and six blocks, outside hitter Cory Walker had four blocks, libero Sean Grubbs finished with 13 digs, outside hitter Rory Jones had seven digs and freshma setter Tyler Rex ended with 64 assists.
The 64 assists was a career-high for Rex.
"Overall we didn't play very clean volleyball, but it was a match where we hung in there long enough and gave ourselves an opportunity to win and that is all you can ask for from the guys," Pestolesi said. "A couple of kids just made huge plays late in the match for us and that was the difference."
Notes
Irvine Valley went undefeated at home this season with a record of 9-0.
The match was also Irvine Valley's sixth contest that went to five games this season. IVC had a record of 5-1 in five-game matches.
"It is our guys sucking it up and finding a way to get it done late," Pestolesi said of his team pulling out five-game matches.
The Lasers will find out Tuesday night who they play in the state semifinals next Friday.
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