It was the intradistrict rivalry between the Irvine Valley women's volleyball team and Saddleback.

It was the Battle for the Irons.

It was the largest crowd on hand since Saddleback's 1998 state tournament runner-up finish.

But it all went Irvine Valley's way after the first game in a three game sweep of the Gauchos, 25-17, 25-14, 25-11, at Saddleback in an Orange Empire Conference match on Friday night.

Both teams came out firing on offense and digging on defense in game one and the score was tied at 16-16 before IVC found a couple of strong servers in its rotation and outdistanced the Gauchos down the stretch by a 9-1 count for the 25-17 win.

The Lasers, ranked fourth in the state, opened up a 13-7 lead in game two that built into a 22-10 lead before ending in favor of Irvine Valley, 25-14.

Although the third game was tied at 6-6, Irvine Valley took the lead and built it into a 12-8 advantage before finding the right rotation to end the match with a 25-11 win.

"Saddleback's team is so much more improved, and it really showed in that close first game," IVC coach Tom Pestolesi said about his Gaucho opponents. "I think we played the best that we have all season in games two and three."

Irvine Valley improved its record to 7-0 overall and 3-0 in conference, while Saddleback slipped to 2-6 overall and 0-3 in conference.

Saddleback was led offensively by Melissa Chavez (11 kills) and Courtney Spitz (7 kills) while Denielle Espejo had 15 assists and 11 defensive digs.

Irvine Valley was paced by sophomore outside hitter Katie Wilkerson with 11 kills and sophomore middle blocker Carly Loucks with 10 kills while sophomore libero Nichole May had 11 defensive digs and three service aces.

Sophomore setter Allie Hammer finished with 39 assists for the Lasers.

IVC hosts Cypress on Wednesday at 6 p.m. in another conference match