Men’s Volleyball: Vikings’ win streak snapped after five-set loss to Santa Barbara

The Long Beach City College men's volleyball team had its 10-match winning streak snapped on Wednesday night after a tough 3-2 Western State Conference loss to visiting Santa Barbara City College.

The loss was also the first for Long Beach in conference play since 2008. Since dropping a three-set match to Santa Monica College on March 28, the Vikings had won 29 straight WSC matches.

Santa Barbara won the contest by scores of 17-25, 25-23, 18-25, 25-12, and 15-13 to extend its own winning streak to five matches.

A key point in the match came in Set 2. Long Beach (11-3, 6-1 WSC) led 20-17 after a kill from sophomore outside hitter Parker Del Re (Highland, AZ) and looked to take the set and a commanding 2-0 lead. But Santa Barbara took advantage of five LBCC errors and outscored the Vikings 8-3 the rest of the way to pull out the win.

Long Beach bounced back with an easy 25-18 win in Set 3 before Santa Barbara (9-6, 6-2 WSC) took over momentum with a 25-12 win in Set 4.

In the deciding fifth set, Long Beach jumped out to an 8-6 advantage after a block from freshman right side Max Wechsung (St. John Bosco HS) and freshman middle blocker Aniefre Etim-Thomas. Once again, the Vaqueros answered with a big rally, posting seven straight points and after an ace from SBCC's Kaahukane Leite-Ah Yo, led 13-8.

The Vikings made one last push, scoring the next four points thanks to a pair of blocks and two SBCC hitting errors to get within one point at 13-12.

But kills by Justin Hertlein and Michael Naki closed out the set and match win for the Vaqueros.

Wechsung led LBCC with 14 kills and added 4 blocks. Del Re and sophomore middle blocker Kris Johnson (Lakewood HS) both had 13 kills, while sophomore setter Chris Austin (Henderson, NV) posted 43 assists. Freshman libero Dylan Marquess (Downey HS) had a match-high 17 digs.

Hertlein led all with 17 kills for Santa Barbara and added 4 blocks. Leite-Ah Yo totaled 49 assists and Naki posted 11 digs.  

Long Beach will need to wait another night to clinch the Western State Conference title. The Vikings return to action on Friday (Apr 8) when they travel to El Camino College for a 6 p.m. match. Long Beach closes out the home schedule on Saturday (Apr 9) with a 7 p.m. conference match against Santa Monica.