Golden West won the key points down the stretch in the third and fourth sets on Tuesday night, spoiling the men’s volleyball home opener for SBCC with a 3-1 win in the Sports Pavilion.
Matt Winslow pounded a season-high 18 kills but it wasn’t enough for the Vaqueros (2-2), who dropped a 25-23, 18-25, 25-21, 25-21 decision in the nonconference match.
Chris Utroske, a 6-6 middle hitter, added 10 kills with only one error. He hit .643 for the match. Collin Cohen had eight kills while Aquiles Montoya had seven kills and four stuff blocks.
“We came out fired up and then our inexperience came to light at the end of the first game,” said coach Armen Zakarian. “We didn’t handle the situation the right way when it was 23-all. We had opportunities to swing and we didn’t take advantage of those.”
Cody Kreitzer, the Vaqueros’ starting opposite who’s hitting .500 on the season, missed the match with an injury.
Santa Barbara (2-2) closed the second set on a 10-5 run and Dakota Smith’s ace serve ended it at 25-18. The Rustlers (2-0) regained the upper hand in the third set with an 8-1 opening burst.
Winslow had seven kills in the fourth set and there were 13 ties. The Vaqueros led 18-17 before the visitors went on a 5-1 run to take a 22-19 lead that they never relinquished.
“We didn’t execute tonight,” Zakarian stated. “The one area where we did a poor job was taking good transition swings. We were not getting underneath balls and putting them up in positions for our hitters to take swings.”
Jordon Dyer had 30 assists and Derek Martinez made 10 digs. Winslow had six digs and Cohen added four.
The Vaqueros will hit the road for a 3 1/2-hour trip to Palomar on Saturday. They’ll take on Palomar at 9 a.m. and San Diego City at 2 p.m.
