Jenn Waddill pounded 14 kills and hit .500 Tuesday night as SBCC showed off its vast array of hitting power in the first round of the Southern Cal Regional with a 3-0 women’s volleyball sweep of Canyons.
The scores were 25-14, 25-21, 25-21. The Vaqueros (21-5) jumped ahead 12-4 in the first set and 14-4 in the third and overcame a 21-19 deficit to win the second set in the Sports Pavilion.
“We had a really good energy flow,” said Waddill, a 6-1 middle blocker who was named first-team All-WSC North on Saturday. “The passing was good, the setting was good and therefore, the hitting’s good.”
Fifth-seeded SBCC will travel to No. 4 Pasadena (21-4) on Saturday for a second-round match at 7 p.m. Pasadena beat the Vaqueros 3-1 in the second match this year and 3-2 at the Pierce Tournament in late September.
Allyson Porter had 12 kills and 10 digs and Antonia Antes added nine kills in the seventh straight win by SBCC. The last six have come by 3-0 sweeps.
The Vaqueros improved to 7-0 at home this year and have won 23 of their last 24 home matches. They scored the last six points of the second set to win 25-21 and opened the third set on a 9-1 run.
Piper Obradovich had 29 digs while setter Kelsey Soos, the MVP of the WSC North, had 14 digs and 35 assists. Soos and Porter also made the All-Southern Cal Region team.
“We played with great composure,” said 20th-year head coach Ed Gover. “Canyons is a very strong ball-control team and we were in the right spots. Piper was all over the place in the back row and picked up some very key digs.
“We got excellent setting from Kelsey Soos, especially to our right side,” he added. “They were keying on our outside hitters and she reversed the ball several times. That gave the seams to the outsides later in the match.”
Waddill thinks her team can go a long way.
“I think we can win the state,” she declared. “We’re only going to get better. The better we get, the farther we’ll go.”
The Vaqueros received a boost in their last couple of matches after Armen Zakarian, the new men’s head coach, joined the bench as an assistant.
“Pasadena has some very good players,” said Gover. “We lost to them in four early and then in five games. Now, we get to play them again and we know them a little better so I think it‘s going to be a great, great match.”
