Irvine Valley women's volleyball coach Tom Pestolesi knew that his new team might hit some rough patches early this season.
The Lasers lost their second straight match of the year, falling to a talented College of the Canyons squad, 26-24, 21-25, 25-21, 25-13, on Wednesday night at home.
Irvine Valley's record slipped to 1-2 overall, while Canyons improved to 4-0 overall. Canyons has wins so far this season over Irvine Valley, Grossmont and El Camino. Irvine Valley won the state title, Grossmont made it to the state tournament and El Camino reached the regional final last year.
"Canyons is a really good team," IVC coach Tom Pestolesi said. "And we were right there for the first three sets. We did some good things tonight.
"We had our chances in the first and third sets, but made some mistakes. We kept shooting ourselves in the foot. We will just keep working at it."
Irvine Valley dropped a tough first set, bounced back to take the second set and then were in a battle in the third set before losing at the end.
IVC trailed, 14-10, in the third set, but rallied to tie it at 16-16 on back-to-back kills by sophomore outside hitter Hannah Matt.
Consecutive blocks by Canyons put the Cougars back in front, 18-16, and they never trailed again in the set. An ace by Katie Rutecki gave Canyons a 20-17 lead.
Irvine Valley pulled within 21-20 on a block by freshman middle blocker Hailey Riden and sophomore outside hitter Kayla Scheevel.
But IVC was then called for reaching over the top of the net on the next play and Canyons led, 22-20. An ace by Emily Bible pushed the Cougars' advantage to 23-20.
Canyons closed out the set three points later on an ace by Chelsea Corn.
The Cougars used the momentum to roll in the fourth and final set.
Canyons was paced by Alize Bricot with a career-high 18 kills. Bible had 11 kills and Brooke Garelick added eight kills. Rutecki finished with 35 assists.
Irvine Valley got 13 kills each from Matt and Scheevel in the defeat. Scheevel also had 13 digs and two aces.
Riden ended with 10 kills, hit .667 and had five blocks for the Lasers. Freshman libero Emily Reinking ended with 14 digs and sophomore setter Jenna Olbright had 42 assists.
The Lasers hurt themselves with 11 service errors.
Irvine Valley doesn't play again until next Wednesday when it travels to Moorpark for a 5 p.m. match.
