Matt Winslow racked up a career-high 30 kills on Wednesday, leading No. 7 SBCC to a 3-1 upset of No. 2 El Camino in a key WSC men’s volleyball match at the Sports Pavilion.
It was the fourth straight for the Vaqueros (10-6, 5-4), who improved to 4-0 in the second half of conference play with the 21-25, 25-19, 25-23, 25-18 triumph. El Camino, which started the night as the WSC co-leader with No. 1 Long Beach, fell to 11-4 and 6-2.
Santa Barbara has won its last four matches by 3-1 scores. It was the third straight match that the Vaqueros beat a team they had lost to in the first round of WSC play.
Winslow, a 6-5 freshman outside hitter from Clovis, said he woke up feeling great and just wanted to hit the ball.
“Our goal was to have some fun and put the pressure on them,“ said Winslow, who had only three errors and hit .551. “It worked out for us.“
Winslow has 58 kills in his last three matches.
Aquiles Montoya had eight kills and hit .571 for SBCC. Chris Utroske added seven kills, including a blast off the block to end the match. Cody Kreitzer had four blocks, Jordon Dyer collected 54 assists and Derek Martinez recorded 12 digs.
“Winslow played the best individual match of anyone I’ve had in my two years,” said SBCC coach Armen Zakarian. “He was not stopped tonight. To hit over.500 as an outside hitter is pretty rare.”
After dropping the first set, the Vaqueros rallied from an early 5-1 deficit in the second. They used a 10-3 run and built a 17-11 lead on a kill off the block by Winslow. He ended the 25-19 win with a kill down the line.
There were 14 ties in the third set. The last one was at 20-20. Kreitzer broke the tie with a shot off the block and Winslow boomed a kill from the 10-foot line for a 22-20 advantage. SBCC won the set 25-23 on a quick set from Dyer to Montoya.
The fourth set was all Santa Barbara as it forged leads of 10-5 and 17-12 on a roof block by Montoya.
“We weren’t bad in the first set, we just weren’t aggressive,” said Zakarian. “From now on, every night is a championship match for us. We lost four times in the first round and we’re taking care of business in the second round.”
The Vaqueros remained in third place in the WSC standings and could assure themselves of a playoff berth by beating top-ranked Long Beach in the regular-season finale on Wednesday in a 7 p.m. home match.
