Porras, Pacheco volleyball use conservative approach to win 5-set thriller

Leonel Porras was having a rough night.

The Pacheco High School gym has been plagued with electrical breaker issues since the school opened in 2010. The school opted to fix the problem during spring break, leaving the Panthers’ boys volleyball team without a facility in which to practice.

The rust showed Monday evening in Livingston, and after a series of missed kill attempts, Porras’ confidence was shaken. So with his team facing match point in the fifth and decisive set and the ball coming his way, the Pacheco outside hitter was taking no chances. As the Wolves’ block sold out on a set near the net, Porras boldly tipped the ball over them for the set-tying point.

The Panthers closed the match with the next two points and pulled out a gritty 25-23, 7-25, 25-20, 15-25, 16-14 victory on the road.

“We took spring break off and just weren’t playing at the level we were playing at before it,” Porras said. “I honestly thought we were going to lose we were so sloppy. I was definitely struggling.

“I’d messed up so many times I didn’t want to hit anymore. When that last ball came to me, I was just going to make sure I got it in play and kept the game going.”

Even not at its best, Pacheco led for most of the fifth set.

The Panthers (3-6, 3-3 Western Athletic Conference) played a risk-reward match all night, turning in the bulk of the big plays but making many more mistakes as well. Mike Thurlow’s squad changed that to start the fifth set, coming out much more conservative and allowing Livingston (1-3 WAC) to make the mistakes.

The tactic seemed to work as Pacheco built a 10-6 lead and looked poised to finish after Mario Valtierra’s (team-high nine assists) kill made it 13-10.

As it did throughout the evening, Livingston mustered a response. A couple of Pacheco hitting errors got the rally going as the Wolves ran off four straight points to take a 14-13 lead on a Jose Pacheco ace, one of his team-high six.

Porras tied the score with his tip, and Fernando Lopez gave the Panthers their first match point with an ace. Jose Medina (team-high three kills) wasted no time with a cross-court kill to win it.

“We probably haven’t played this badly since our second match of the season,” Thurlow said. “We looked like a team that hadn’t touched a ball in over a week. The good thing with these kids (is) they don’t dwell on anything. They rarely worry about the last point, much less what happened in the last set.

“That was big, because we didn’t panic when we fell behind in the fifth set.”

Pacheco wasn’t the only team dusting off cobwebs after a long break. Wolves coach Kyle Eaton said he gave his team spring break off as well. It probably played a part in the Panthers’ opening the night with an 11-5 lead.

Livingston responded. The Wolves rode Pacheco’s serve and Germain Cruz’s (game-high nine kills) presence at the net to tie the score 17-17. It remained tied 22-22 before the Panthers finished with a 3-0 run.

Livingston seemed to get loose in the second set, quickly dismantling Pacheco 25-7. As if the second set never happened, the Panthers answered with a 25-20 win in set three. The Wolves just as quickly shook off their own setback and forced the fifth set with a 25-15 win in set four.

“Having no practices before a Monday game was probably a bad idea,” Eaton said. “There were just little tiny fixes that we couldn’t make within the match that cost us. I was pleased with the way we fought back and gave ourselves a chance, but fear of making a mistake took over that fifth set for both teams.

“We didn’t really go for it when we had the opportunity down the stretch because of that fear. It was probably the difference in the match.”

This story was originally published April 4, 2016 at 10:54 PM with the headline "Porras, Pacheco volleyball use conservative approach to win 5-set thriller."