Irvine Valley's men's volleyball team won its third straight match and seventh in its last eight contests with a 26-24, 25-22, 25-14 win over Golden West at home on Friday night.
Irvine Valley's record moved to 8-3 overall and 6-1 in the Pacific Coast Athletics Conference.
The Lasers are basically in a tie with Grossmont for second in the standings. Each team has one loss.
Orange Coast is on top at 6-0. Irvine Valley plays at Orange Coast next Wednesday at 6 p.m.
"We are getting better," Irvine Valley coach Ki Yi said. "We definitely played well at San Diego Mesa (a sweep on Wednesday) and then backed that up with a sweep over Golden West. Our expectations are still high."
The sweep on Friday was Irvine Valley's sixth of the season and third in a row.
Irvine Valley got contributions from a number of players, including sophomore outside hitter Cole Murray, who finished with 12 kills.
Freshman outside hitter Peter Van Liefde had seven kills and sophomore outside hitter Josh Schmidt and freshman middle blocker Robert Ryley each finished with six kills.
Sophomore libero Billy Crow added seven digs, sophomore setter Arek Halaj ended with 26 assists and two solo blocks and freshman setter Jake Adams had 10 assists.
Irvine Valley was up, 24-22, in the opening set only to see Golden West score two straight points, including getting a kill from Lenzie Ainsworth to tie it at 24-24.
But the Lasers won the final two points to take the set.
Golden West hit out and then sophomore middle blocker Kevin Dell came through with a kill.
Irvine Valley picked up its play in the second set and pulled away late to go up two sets to none.
And in the third set, the Lasers bounced back from an early deficit to roll.
IVC was down, 4-2, but then scored six of the next seven points to take control.
Schmidt, Murray, sophomore middle blocker Matt Mittry each had kills to help put Irvine Valley in front, 6-4.
After a Golden West point made it 6-5, the Lasers scored four straight points. Murray had back-to-back kills and then Halaj and Murray each had solo blocks.
Up, 11-7, Irvine Valley scored another four points in a row, getting kills by Murray and Schmidt in the process, to take a 15-7 advantage.
An ace by Crow later made it 18-8 for the Lasers.
A kill by Mittry made it 21-13. Irvine Valley got to match point on a hitting error by Golden West and the Lasers won the match on a serving error by the Rustlers.
"We were a little inconsistent tonight, but got better as the match went along," Ki said. "A win is a win. Now we will see what we can do at Orange Coast. They are the best team in our conference. We are hoping for an exciting match on Wednesday."
