The Santa Barbara City College men’s volleyball team came out victorious 3-2 (30-26, 30-27, 28-30, 23-30, 17-15), after a nail-biting match against the Moorpark College Raiders Friday.

The team is now 8-3 overall and 3-1 in conference play.

Coach Melody Parker was pleased with the win.

“We struggled in the fourth game but came back in the fifth,” Parker said. “This is the fourth match that we won in the fifth game.”

SBCC won the first game after strong plays on both ends of the court. The Vaqs took an early three point lead at 8-5 and never let it go. Outside hitter Bryce Winsor was a constant threat, and showed great leadership as he kept communicating with his teammates.

“We never thought we were going to lose,” Winsor said. “We knew that we could come back in game five, we never lose in game five.”

In the second game, Moorpark was the team that was most effective, and had a five point lead at 20-15. The Vaqs went on a four point run, forcing the Raiders to call for a timeout at 20-19. City College took over the lead for the first time in game two at 27-26 and finally won the game after a kill by outside hitter Tyson Rietz.

After two games, it looked like the Vaqueros were going to bring home the victory in the third.

Instead, Moorpark came back and won the third and fourth games after some sloppy play by the Vaqueros. In the fourth game, the Vaqs were outplayed by the visitors and never got close to threatening their lead.

“We had a lot of unforced errors in game three and four,” said Parker. “But our mental toughness helped us through.”

In the fifth game, neither team wanted to give away easy points, which resulted in great defensive play from both sides.

The teams were neck to neck until Moorpark got a two point lead at 13-11, causing City College to take a timeout. The Vaqs came back and took the lead at 14-13.

Moorpark tied the game, and the team traded points until setter/libero Mana Guerreiro then gave the Vaqs the lead at 16-15. Then a netball from the Raiders settled the game in favor of City College.

Guerreiro had 67 assists on the evening and was one of the better players in the match.

“We thought we were going to close the game automatically in the third,” Guerreiro said. “We lost the momentum, but we got it back in the final game.”

The Vaqueros goes on the road in their next game on Wednesday at 6 p.m. against the Long Beach City College Vikings in Long Beach.