Irvine Gets Past Long Beach Poly

The roles were reversed, but the outcome was the same.

Third-seeded Irvine defeated unseeded Long Beach Poly, 15-12, 15-13, 15-12, in the second round of the Division I-AA girls’ volleyball playoffs Thursday night at Poly.

Last year, the Vaqueros were unseeded and the Jackrabbits were seeded No. 4 when the teams met in the second round of the playoffs. Irvine won that match too.

This time around, the Vaqueros were led by senior outside hitter Julianna Bayley (13 kills, 19 digs) and senior opposite hitter Jamie Witmer (12 kills, five aces).

Witmer recorded four of her five aces in Game 3, including two in a row to close out the match.

“I know it sounds kind of corny to say you’re in the zone,” Witmer said, “but I guess I was.”

Irvine (12-4) advanced to play Upland in a third-round match at 7 p.m. Saturday at Irvine. Upland beat Oxnard, 15-9, 15-3, 15-12.

Even though it didn’t win a game, Poly (14-6) gave the Vaqueros all they could handle. Outside hitter Jennifer Randall contributed a game-high 21 kills for Poly, which failed to capitalize on leads of 6-3 in Game 1, 7-4 in Game 2 and 12-11 in Game 3.

“We had opportunities to give up in all three games,” Vaquero Coach Mark Mednick said. “But we didn’t give them any long streaks of points. That’s just our focus on each point, to not hang our heads at any stage of the match.”

Sophomore middle blocker Olivia Waldowski (11 kills, four aces) was impressive for Irvine, registering a kill and an ace on consecutive points to give the Vaqueros the victory in Game 1.

Witmer smashed the ball off Randall as Irvine survived a late Jackrabbit mini-run to eke out a victory in Game 2.