SBCC suffered its second men’s volleyball loss in three days on Friday night as Irvine Valley topped the Vaqueros 30-26, 30-23, 30-25 in a nonconference match at the Sports Pavilion.
The visiting Lasers improved to 5-0 while the Vaqueros fell to 5-2. Santa Barbara didn’t have the services of 6-6 Pete Aronchick, who has shoulder and calf injuries.
“Our passing and blocking were better (than Wednesday’s match at Orange Coast) but our hitting wasn’t good,” said coach Melody Parker. “We ran our outside sets a little faster to try to beat their block but they were really fast.”
Miles Evans led the Vaqueros with 14 kills, Andrew Thomason had 14 digs and Kaahukane Leite-AhYo dished out 29 assists. SBCC led for much of the third set before Irvine Valley took the lead at 23-22.
“We have a bye next week and we’ll spend the time getting ready for our conference opener,” said Parker.
The Vaqueros start WSC play on March 3 at home against L.A. Pierce.
