Women’s Volleyball: Rustlers knock off OCC

HUNTINGTON BEACH — Some Rustlers’ hustle helped considerably jostle the Orange Empire Conference women’s volleyball standings Wednesday night as host Golden West College handed Orange Coast its first loss of the season

The Rustlers, ranked No. 9 in the state, took control early, then rallied from a lopsided setback in the third set to claim a 25-20, 25-22, 15-25, 25-16 victory that knocked the No. 5-ranked Pirates out of a first-place tie with Irvine Valley.

OCC, which had won its first nine matches, fell to 3-1 in conference, tied for second with Cypress and one match behind IVC. Golden West (10-3, 2-2) is wedged into a fourth-place tie with Fullerton and Riverside with 10 conference matches remaining.

Golden West Coach Bill Lawler told his players afterward that they simply out-hustled the Pirates, who were led by sophomore outside hitter Sierra Brown’s 18 kills.

Brown, a Newport Harbor High product who earned all-conference recognition as a freshman, was the only Pirates attacker with more than nine kills.

Golden West, meanwhile, rode the two-pronged arsenal of Ashley Pettibone (25 kills) and Gabi Nguyen (15).

“I thought we competed great as a team,” Lawler said. “It’s an [intra-district] rivalry, so they want to beat us and we want to beat them. But there are quite a few of those now [in the OEC] with IVC and Cypress. They are all really big matches and now Fullerton is doing real well too.”

Golden West rallied from deficits to win the first two sets, but led only once — at 2-1 — in a third set dominated by the visitors.

In the final set, the Rustlers seized a 4-0 advantage and the Pirates were never closer than two, the last instance being at 11-9.

But an OCC net violation and a hitting error helped Golden West produce the next four points and the Rustlers turned that into a 7-2 run that put OCC in too big a hole.

“We executed well and I thought we took advantage of the opportunities we created through out blocking and digging and that led to points,” Lawler said. “I thought getting off to a good start [in the fourth set] was key, especially after losing the third set by so much.”

Pettibone, a freshman out of Esperanza High whose 110 kills coming in were second-most on the team behind Nguyen’s 131, was the go-to point-getter at the net for the winners.

“She played great,” Lawler said of the 5-foot-9 outside hitter. “She hit great, passed great, and provided us competitive fire.”

OCC’s competitive zeal was hampered by an atypical lapse in production by season kills leader Danyelle Brown, who had just two kills until late in the second set and had just five of her nine kills in the first three games.

Danyelle Brown, a 5-8 freshman outside hitter out of Tustin High, came into the match with a team-best 92 kills, 13 more than Sierra Brown.

Danielle Boyette, a 6-0 sophomore transfer from IVC, had 35 assists for the Pirates, for whom freshman middle blocker Kerrigan Hecht had seven kills and four total blocks.

OCC freshman Lehua Alama-Jordan, an Estancia High product, had seven kills and 1.5 blocks, while Kellie Kleszcz, a 6-0 sophomore middle blocker, chipped in two kills, four solo blocks, one block assist and one of the Pirates’ two ace serves.

Entering Wednesday, the Pirates had swept six matches this season and had lost more than one game only once — in a five-set triumph at Fullerton on Friday.

The Pirates visit Riverside on Friday, before playing host to IVC on Wednesday at 6 p.m.