Men's volleyball team moves into state final with sweep of Long Beach
Apr 24, 2008
The Irvine Valley men's volleyball team moved a step closer to a second straight California Community College Athletic Association Championship Thursday night.
The Lasers swept Long Beach City for the second time this season, beating the Vikings, 30-20, 30-26, 30-27, in a semifinal contest at Irvine Valley.
The Lasers will now meet Pacific Coast Conference rival Orange Coast in the title match Saturday night at 7 p.m. at IVC. Orange Coast beat Santa Monica, 30-24, 31-29, 26-30, 30-21, in the other semifinal.
"Our goal was to get to the state final and we are here," IVC Coach Tom Pestolesi said. "We might as well try to get one more win."
Irvine Valley improved its record to 17-2 overall with the win over Long Beach (14-5).
Down, 6-5, in the opening game, Irvine Valley went on a 4-0 run to take control. Up, 14-10, the Lasers held a four to six point lead most of the rest of the way.
Freshman outside hitter Reese Haine played a big part in closing out the first game for the Lasers.
He recorded two kills and two aces late. A serve in the net by Long Beach City gave the first game to Irvine Valley.
The second game was back and forth throughout. There were eight lead changes until Irvine Valley broke things open. Tied 23-23, Irvine Valley scored five straight points. Haine again came up big.
He had a kill and an ace to push the lead to 25-23 and then sophomore outside hitter Tim Golden had a kill and a block for points. A hitting error by Long Beach City gave IVC a 28-23 lead.
The Lasers closed out the game five points later with a kill by sophomore outside hitter Peter Johnson.
IVC led for all but two points in the third game. The Lasers took their largest lead of the game at 20-12 after a kill and then a block by Johnson and a hitting error by the Vikings.
Long Beach didn't give in, however. LBCC closed the gap to 26-25 on a block by Antwain Aguillard and an IVC hitting error.
But after a timeout, Irvine Valley finished the game out strong. Freshman middle blocker Nick Martus came through with a kill on a slide play and Johnson delivered another kill to make the score 28-25.
Long Beach City scored two points in a row to get within one again, but the Lasers weren't to be denied.
Johnson finished one of his best matches of the season with two straight kills to close the game and match out.
"Peter was huge for us," Pestolesi said. "He had so many kills at key times. But he has been doing that for us now for two years."
Johnson, the two-time player of the year in the Pacific Coast Conference, led the way with 20 kills and nine digs. He hit a super impressive .571 on the night (20-4-28).
Haine finished with 14 kills and three aces, Golden added eight kills and seven digs, Martus had seven kills and seven blocks and sophomore libero Kaleo Baxter contributed five digs.
Freshman setter Phil Younglove guided the offense to a .398 team hitting percentage in the match.
The state championship match should be a good one, especially if it is anything like the two teams' last contest.
Irvine Valley defeated Orange Coast both times the teams played this season. But their battle on April 2 could have gone either way.
The Lasers out-lasted the Pirates in five games, rallying to win 15-13 in the fifth game.
"Our mindset will be to keep doing what we have been doing," Pestolesi said. "We've played pretty good volleyball all year."