City College men’s volleyball put on a strong performance to beat Long Beach in straight sets on Wednesday at the Santa Barbara Sports Pavilion.
The Vaqueros won with set scores of 27-25, 25-23 and 25-21.
“That’s our best win so far this year,” said head coach Matt Jones, “it wasn’t a perfect night for us offensively, but I thought our defense was solid.”
City College was led by freshman opposite hitter Sean Reynaert (No. 11) who had a personal season high 14 kills with just two errors and four blocks. Freshman setter Keaton Arutain (No. 5) had 19 assists and freshman opposite hitter Taylor McCluskey (No. 4) had 11 kills in the match.
“We worked as a team,” said Reynaert. ”We worked a lot this week on transition and that helped us.”
In the first set City College had control early and built its lead up to 18-12 but Long Beach would score five straight points and keep the rest of the set close. City College had two ace serves in the set and the back and forth affair was finished off with a big block from sophomore middle blocker To’o To’o (No. 13).
The second set was close and become even more competitive when the officials made a few questionable calls in favor of Long Beach. The Vaqueros did not let that break their focus, and won the set on a kill by Reynaert.
The third and final set was when Reynaert really took over the match and propelled City College to the win. The set was started off by a Reynaert kill, just one of his eight in the third set alone. The set was finished off with a kill by McCluskey, but three of the final six City College points came from Reynaert to finish off a dominating performance.
“I wanted to win in three,” Reynaert said. “Finish it off for the team.”
The win improves City College’s record to 9-4 and 4-2 in conference play. A lot was on the line tonight, as both teams were tied for third place and the top three teams in the conference will move on to the playoffs. The win gives City College sole possession of third place and a one game lead over Long Beach for the last playoff spot.
“We had to get a big win,” Jones said. “It could come down to a match at their place for a playoff spot.”
City College will play its next match against Santa Monica, which is currently in first place and beat City College 3-2 in their last meeting. The match will be at 6 p.m. Friday, March 20 at Santa Monica.
