Sophomores Nick May and Evan Yoshimoto combined for 25 kills and only one hitting error on Friday night as SBCC swept San Diego Mesa 25-16, 25-22, 25-17 in the Sports Pavilion.
May, a 6-2 sophomore from Carlsbad, had 14 kills and eight digs. Yoshimoto, a 6-5 sophomore from Ventura, pounded 11 kills with five digs. Yoshimoto hit a sparkling .550 and May finished at .500 for the Vaqueros (3-2).
“It was an awesome night, everyone was there mentally and physically,” said Yoshimoto. “We really got it together as a team.”
The Vaqueros dominated the first set, jumping out to leads of 10-5, 15-7 and 19-10. They took an early 12-7 advantage in the second set on back-to-back kills by Yoshimoto, who had five in the set. He capped a 5-2 run that boosted the lead to 23-18 with two straight kills.
Mesa used a 4-0 run to pull within a point. SBCC called a timeout and ended the set on a solo block by Junior Too and a kill through the block by Owen Yoshimoto.
“We just had a practice focused solely on hitting and coach hammered it home, showing us the correct form,” said May. “It was working all night and we just kept doing it. We stayed level-headed and didn’t get stressed.”
Carl Mendoza had 12 digs for SBCC and Drew Hogan handed out 31 assists.
The Olympians (1-4) built a 10-7 lead in the third set before the Vaqueros ripped off a 16-5 run, capped by four straight Mesa errors. May got the 24th point and the match ended when a Mesa player was wide right on a cross-court attempt.
“We took the first set and we didn’t let up, like we did against Palomar (in a 3-2 loss),” said first-year coach Matt Jones. “Winning a first set by 5-7 points doesn’t mean anything unless you can close out the match.
“We had a little lapse of focus at the end of the second set. In the third set, they came out and played decently well but they did miss a few serves at the start. Then we started to find out rhythm, got our stops late and finished them off.
“It wasn’t perfect but it was a pretty solid effort from start to finish.”
