IVC falls to San Diego Mesa in four
IMPERIAL — The Imperial Valley College volleyball team has had itself an up-and-down season. Not unlike buoy bobbing in the tide, they’ve hit their share of crests and troughs — with four-game win streaks counterbalanced by similar losing streaks.
They entered Tuesday’s match with San Diego Mesa with an overall record of 10-12 and three games left to play — giving them a chance at finishing with an above-.500 record if they won out.
Unfortunately for IVC, it wasn’t to be, as they lost to Mesa in four sets (2225, 25-21, 22-25, 25-16), following a season-long trend line wherein spates of strong play prove insufficient to conquer the top tiers of Pacific Coast Athletic Conference competition.
Mesa was always going to be a tough out for the local team.
The Olympians have been the class of the PCAC South in 2018, improving to 9-0 against league competition (16-9 overall) with their win last night (which gave them the season sweep over IVC).
The San Diego school boasts at least 23,000 more enrollees than IVC, and its volleyball team rosters players from as far away as Iowa — which contrasts sharply with IVC’s lineup of entirely ex-Imperial Valley Leaguers (four from Imperial High, two from Brawley, two from Southwest, and one apiece from Central and Holtville).
Extra resources or no, Mesa didn’t get a cakewalk from IVC. They held a lazy six-point lead early in the first game and pulled away late in the fourth, but the two teams were otherwise neck-and-neck just about the whole way.
Both squads knew what they were about. Saying so may enter into the realm of tautology, but it was obvious the game featured play of a higher caliber than is generally to be found at the high-school level. The soft hits were softer (with trickier spin) and the hard hits were harder (with meteor-lite impact sounds).
Age and wisdom seemed particularly to impact the quality of defensive hits, where experience and nuance convey the starkest advantages.
On the whole, the games made for an enjoyable bit of spectacle.
As noted Mesa enjoyed an easygoing advantage for most of the first set, as IVC warmed themselves up.
The second set opened with the microwave going DING!
IVC took an early 5-1 lead and nursed that momentum all the way to a 25-21 win highlighted by some sweet swinging from Destiny Salgado and some keen digs by Savannah Estrada off of some balls scorched by hard-hitting Mesa-ite Zoe Tippetts.
In game three it looked like one win would lead to another as IVC had another fast start to go up 8-3.
Things still appeared A-OK at 17-14, but then Mesa flipped the switch, tying it up at 20-20 and going on to close it out at 25-22 in an aesthetically pleasing stretch of play full of net tips and clutch passes on both sides.
Game four started out as a classic titfor-tat affair. The two teams went back and forth up to 9-9 when Mesa started to assert control in their eventual 25-16 win.
Overall it was a good showing for IVC. They played fairly well against a well-heeled opponent, but there’s no denying that they missed a chance for more.
The team has two games remaining in the regular season, with the most immediate being a home date with Southwestern College on Friday at 5 p.m.