Bianca Castro pounded 12 kills and Emily Banas had eight kills and six aces in Friday’s 3-0 women’s volleyball sweep of Ventura in the Sports Pavilion. The scores were 25-16, 25-13, 25-11.
“I’ve been working on my serve in practice,” said Banas, who had an 11-0 service run in the third set that stretched the lead to 15-2. “I’m serving tougher than I usually do.”
Heidi Van Den Oever added eight kills for the 25th-ranked Vaqueros, who won their third straight to improve to 5-8 overall and 2-0 in the WSC North. Santa Barbara has won 27 of its last 29 at home. Katy Dolan contributed four kills.
Ventura is 0-13 and 0-2.
Melissa Luke had 10 digs and three aces for SBCC, which used an 8-1 run to break open a 17-15 game in the first set. The second set ended with a 9-0 Vaquero burst, highlighted by a pair of aces from Luke.
They led 16-2 and 20-5 in the third set. Van Den Oever capped the 25-11 triumph with a cut shot to the right frontcourt.
“Our setting was a ton better tonight,” said assistant coach Armen Zakarian. “Our passing still needs some work. Our two jump float-servers, Emily and Melissa, were really effective.”
The Vaqueros had 12 aces in Wednesday’s win at Oxnard and 10 more on Friday.
“One thing I’m most proud of is our hitting,“ Zakarian added. “We’re hitting the ball smart and we’re not making dumb errors. We had a good balanced attack and that‘s absolutely what you want as a coach.”
The Vaqueros will play Cuesta on Wednesday in San Luis Obispo.
