Irvine Rallies to Defeat Sea Kings

It took a first-game loss to shake Irvine out of its doldrums, but then the Vaqueros, ranked fourth in the county, soundly defeated third-ranked Corona del Mar in four games in a nonleague boys’ volleyball match Wednesday at Corona del Mar High.

B.J. Fell, who has signed with UC Irvine, had 18 kills and three blocks and junior Kris Kraushaar had 16 kills in a 12-15, 15-6, 15-7, 15-2 victory for Irvine (4-0), which was coming off a three-game victory over ninth-ranked Capistrano Valley on Tuesday.

Corona del Mar (2-1) played without starting outside hitter Alec Hanson, who has a sprained ankle that will probably sideline him for two weeks, and the Sea Kings struggled after playing a scrappy first game.

Greg Stampley, a 6-foot-3 senior, had 10 kills in Game 1 to help the Sea Kings take the early lead with a 15-12 victory. But the Sea Kings scored only 15 points in the final three games.

“We came out hesitant in that first game,” Irvine Coach Mark Mednick said. “Then we got focused. That was our best blocking game this season.”

The Vaqueros’ blockers can be intimidating. Aside from 5-8 setter Justin Marayag, Irvine’s other five starters average 6-5 in height.

Stampley finished with a game-high 22 kills, but Irvine’s blocking helped force him into 13 hitting errors. Corona del Mar’s other big gun, Stanford-bound setter Kevin Hansen, had 36 assists, nine digs and three kills, but also seven hitting errors.

With Corona del Mar’s other attackers struggling to find the range--Chris Shepardson had nine kills and five errors, and Brian Gallagher and Forrest Mack finished with five kills and five errors each--Irvine ran away with the match as its offense began clicking.

Jesse Waldowski had eight kills and three blocks, Zach Jardine had eight kills and four blocks and Jay Jensen had two kills and six blocks, giving Marayag plenty of options. He finished with 47 assists.

“Tuesday’s win was nice and this was an even better one to build on,” Mednick said. “But there’s a lot of good teams out there.”

Both Irvine and Corona del Mar will join all of the county’s top 10 ranked teams in the Orange County Championships Division I tournament this weekend at Marina and Edison high schools.