Even after losing to El Camino in their regular-season finale, Vaquero men’s volleyball has scooped up a third place finish in the Western State Conference and squeezed themselves into the Southern California Regional playoffs.

City College (11-6, 6-4) will travel to face Orange Coast College (13-6, 9-3), which is tied for second in the Pacific Coast Conference, on Tuesday at 7 p.m.

“We set the goal in the beginning of the season to make playoffs, and my players should be proud that their hard work paid off,” head coach Melody Parker said.

In her 12-year tenure, Parker has led SBCC to 10 playoff tourneys. There were no playoffs during one of those seasons due to budget cuts. Parker went on sabbatical during the 2006 and 2007 seasons.

The Vaqs fell to Orange coast (30, 18), (30-21), (30-24) in their Feb. 15 match earlier this season. They will have to defend Orange Coast’s outside hitter Kevin Welch, who recently had his 390th kill in a victory against San Diego City College, and broke the school’s single season record.

“Well, we’re a whole lot better team now than we were earlier this season,” Parker said.

Parker noted that during her last two years as coach the Vaqueros lost in their regular season match up with Orange coast, but came back to win in the playoffs.

The early stage of Wednesday’s match against El Camino was full of strong teamwork by the Vaqueros. City College took game one as a result of good passing and outside hitter Tyler Rietz’s eight kills. Rietz finished with 22 kills throughout the game. Setter Mana Guerrero finished with 47 assists. The Vaqs were unable to keep that momentum, and had 13 service errors in the four-game loss (25-30, 30-26, 30-18, 30-24).

The champions of the Western State Conference and Pacific Coast Conference automatically qualify for the State Final Four on April 25-26 at Santa Monica College. Santa Monica won the WSC while Irvine Valley captured the PCC title. In the other SoCal Regional match, Golden West (PCC No. 3) will travel to Long Beach (WSC No. 2).