After a hard-fought, five-set battle and win over NCAA four-year UC Santa Cruz last Saturday at home, the Irvine Valley men's volleyball team had a much easier time on Wednesday night.
The Lasers rolled in the first two sets and closed out a sweep with a 25-9, 25-5, 25-3 win over San Diego Mesa at home.
Full stats for Irvine Valley, which improved to 8-2 overall, will be posted on Thursday.
Irvine Valley raced out to a 10-3 lead in the first set on an overpass kill by freshman opposite Caden Perkins and never looked back.
The Lasers later ended the set on an ace by freshman outside hitter Karl Stenlund and a kill by Perkins.
Irvine Valley roared even louder in the second set.
IVC used a great scoring run on the serving of freshman setter Andrew Perez to put the set away.
Perez stepped up to serve with IVC ahead, 14-5.
But he served the final 11 points of the set.
A kill by freshman outside hitter Josh Beymer got the Lasers to set point at 24-5 and a hitting error by the Olympians ended things.
The third set was close throughout, but IVC was always in control.
Irvine Valley took a 15-11 lead after an ace by freshman libero Ethan Nau.
IVC took its largest advantage lead of the set at 21-16 on an ace by freshman outside hitter Cort Johnson.
Mesa came back, winning five of the next seven points to get within 23-22.
But a serve in the net and then a net call on Mesa wrapped the win up for the Lasers.
The Lasers hit .333 as a team in the match. Perkins led the way with 10 kills and hit .467.
Stenlund added six kills and three digs and freshman outside hitter Colin Chillingworth had six kills and three digs.
Freshman setter Donovan Gudino ran the offense with 20 assists and freshman libero Adam Schulte finished with four digs.
Irvine Valley plays again next Wednesday at San Diego Miramar at 6 p.m.
