Vaqueros blitz Trade Tech 3-0

By Dave Loveton, SBCC Sports Information

SBCC hit a season-high .482 on Friday night and cruised past L.A. Trade Tech 25-6, 25-12, 25-11 in a WSC men's volleyball match at the Sports Pavilion.

To'o To'o had seven kills on .667 hitting and five blocks while Shaft Wesley pounded seven kills with no errors for a .700 hitting percentage. Wesley had three of his team's nine aces in the 3-0 sweep, which took just 57 minutes.

Robert Gulvin, a 6-5 freshman from Dos Pueblos High, added six kills and four blocks and also had zero errors for a sparkling .857 percentage. Kyle Smiley had 21 assists and two aces.

The Vaqueros improved to 7-3 overall and 2-1 in conference while Trade Tech fell to 0-8 and 0-3.

"We couldn't find any film or even box scores for them," said SBCC coach Matt Jones. "We just wanted to get the ball on their platforms and see what they've got. I was happy with our serving for the most part, except for the second set when we had six service errors which is unacceptable.

"Offensively, we were fine. We did a nice job of not making errors. We hit pretty smart and our middles did well. Shaft played really well, he was our most consistent pin player."

The Vaqueros jumped out to an 11-2 lead in the first set on a slam by To'o, a kill by Jaiden Pina and another kill by Pina on an overset by the Beavers. The lead grew to 19-4 on a kill by Pina.

Santa Barbara grabbed leads of 10-4, 15-8 and 19-10 in the second set. Kiel DeTurk capped the 25-12 win with a block.

"We were just trying to play our level of good volleyball," said Wesley. "My teammates were able to consistently pass the ball well, so we were able to get good sets and create good hitting opportunities."

Trade Tech took a couple of leads in the third set with the last one coming at 7-5. The Vaqueros reeled off 13 of the next 15 points and took an 18-9 lead on a block by To'o and Taylor McCluskey.

"We were pretty confident coming in but we knew we still had to be efficient," said Smiley, a 6-2 freshman setter from Torrance. "We messed around a little at the beginning of the second and third sets. In the end, we did our job and we did well."

The Vaqueros host El Camino (10-1, 3-1) on Wednesday at 6 p.m.