Collin Cohen had 20 kills and hit .500 on Wednesday night but it wasn’t enough to prevent a 3-1 loss to first-place Long Beach City in the men’s volleyball season finale at the Sports Pavilion. The scores were 25-13, 19-25, 25-17, 25-15.
Cohen, who ranks No. 2 in kills in the WSC, tied his season high in kills and finished with 175 on the season. He was a key factor in the second set when the Vaqueros (4-13, 1-9) jumped out to leads of 8-2, 15-9 and 20-14.
One of seven sophomores who played their final match for SBCC, Cohen is planning to continue his career at the University of Pacific.
Davis Grininger had nine kills and four blocks while Johnny Brand, Aquiles Montoya and Dakota Smith had five apiece.
Greg Utupo and Jo’Lon Clark led the Vikings (14-3, 8-2), who shared the WSC title with L.A. Pierce. LBCC pulled within three at 20-17 in the second set before Cohen had a couple of kills to make it 23-18. Smith finished off the victory with a kill off the block.
Drew Hogan had 38 assists and seven digs for the Vaqueros, who switched from their 6-2 offense to a 5-1 early in the match.
Long Beach jumped out to leads of 11-5 and 20-11 in the first set.
“Obviously, you don’t want to start slow against a good team like Long Beach and that’s exactly what we did,” said coach Armen Zakarian. “Instead of getting down, our guys responded well in the second set. We jumped out to a great lead in the second set and did an amazing job of siding out.”
The Vikings used a 9-4 run to stretch their lead to 18-11 in the third set. They went on an 8-2 burst in the fourth set to take a commanding 21-12 advantage.
“As soon as a team jumps on you early, it’s tough to recover,” Zakarian noted.
Zakarian said he enjoyed this season and feels that a team can learn more in losses than in wins.
“You have look inside yourself when you lose,” he stated. “We had a lot of energy and emotion. We just needed a little more focus.
“We’ll re-load as we always do and get better for next year. The thing I’m most proud of is our sophomores are all doing things, they got their AA degrees and they’re all moving on somewhere.
“Our coaching staff learned a ton and this was an unbelievable group to coach. I had a blast with them.”
