It sure wasn’t easy, but the Irvine Valley women’s volleyball team remained unbeaten on the season with a five-game win over Golden West Wednesday night in an Orange Empire Conference match at Irvine Valley.

The contest featured two of the top teams in the state. Golden West went into the match ranked fifth in the state, while Irvine Valley was ranked eighth. Both teams are also expected, along with Orange Coast and Fullerton, to challenge for the conference title this season.

Irvine Valley won the final two games and pulled out a 23-30, 30-27, 27-30, 30-23, 15-4 victory over the Rustlers.

“It was a great win,” IVC Coach Tom Pestolesi said. “The girls really did a good job tonight. I’m happy for them.”

Irvine Valley hadn’t dropped a game in its five previous victories, but lost two of the first three games Wednesday night before rallying.

“We were a little tight early, but then settled down and really played volleyball,” Pestolesi said. “We were down, but didn’t panic and that was great to see. We hadn’t been in a situation like that this year (trailing in a match or even playing a fifth game), but the girls really responded nicely.”

The match swung with Irvine Valley trailing, 15-13, in the fourth game. IVC went on a 6-0 run, highlighted by three straight blocks for points and an ace by freshman outside hitter Mari Guadagnini, to take a 19-15 lead.

The Lasers didn’t turn back. Golden West pulled to within 21-19 in the game, but the Lasers then used a 4-0 run, capped by a block by sophomore outside hitter Chelsea Pavlik and a Golden West passing error to go ahead, 25-19.

IVC later closed out the fourth game on back-to-back kills by sophomore middle blocker Jessica Flood.

The momentum continued for IVC in the fifth game. The team raced out to a 12-3 lead and then at 12-4 won the game and match on four consecutive hitting errors by the Rustlers.

Pavlik led the way with 25 kills, 14 digs and two aces. She moved into a tie fo fourth place on the school's all-time list for kills in a match.

"She is a great kid and a great player," Pestolesi said of Pavlik. "And she always has a lot of fun out there."

Flood added 12 kills, Guadagnini had 10 kills, seven digs and two aces, freshman middle blocker Katie Pascoe finishied with eight kills and freshman libero Amanda Donaldson chipped in with 11 digs.

Sophomore setter Kelly Keating contributed 56 assists.

Irvine Valley will try and improve its record to 10-0 on the year on Friday at Riverside at 7 p.m.