PREP ROUNDUP : Styles, Nelson Lead Laguna Beach Past San Clemente

Bolstered by career matches from Dan Styles and Kurt Nelson, second-ranked Laguna Beach outlasted No. 8 San Clemente in five games in a nonleague boys’ volleyball match Monday at San Clemente.

Styles had 46 kills and Nelson had 94 assists as Laguna Beach, won 14-16, 15-3, 15-11, 13-15, 15-10.

“It’s a good win for us,” Laguna Beach Coach Michael Soylular said. “Kind of ugly, but we’ll take it.”

San Clemente (7-5), which has lost three consecutive matches, was without starters Gabriel Gardner and Corin Bemus in the first game because they missed a practice Friday.

However, San Clemente rallied from a 12-6 deficit to win the opening game, 16-14. Gardner and Bemus returned in the second game, but Laguna Beach (8-0) built a 7-0 lead and evened the match with a 15-3 victory.

Laguna Beach came back from being down, 8-7, and won the third game, 15-11, but blew a 13-10 lead in the fourth game and lost, 15-13. San Clemente finished the fourth game with five consecutive points.

Laguna Beach led, 10-6, in the fifth game before San Clemente rallied to tie it 10-10.

But three San Clemente hitting errors and a block by Nelson set up match point. Justin Maison ended it with a stuff block on Mike LaDue.