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Irvine Valley Participates in Dig Pink Volleyball
Project Breast Cancer Awareness Night

IRVINE, CA - The Irvine Valley women’s volleyball team shook off a bit of rust after not playing in two weeks to pull out a four-game win over Riverside College Friday night in an Orange Empire Conference match at Irvine Valley.

Irvine Valley, ranked fourth in the state, won, 25-16, 24-26, 25-20, 25-20, on Dig Pink Volleyball Project Breast Cancer Awareness Night.

Nearly 400 fans were in attendance for the event, which featured free Asics pink T-shirts, along with raffles and auctions to raise funds in support of breast cancer awareness. All proceeds were donated to breast cancer research.  For more information on Dig Pink, please see https://www.sideout.org/application/teams/team_page/1986.

"In an attempt to connect to our community and teach our student-athletes a valuable lesson about service, Coach Pestolesi’s program conceived this event," IVC Dean and Athletic Director Keith Shackleford said. "It was prompted by an e-mail we received from the Dig Pink Foundation, which uses volleyball at all levels to increase public awareness of the issues surrounding the disease and attempts to find a cure."

The gesture was quickly supported by the gracious donations of Asics, Jet Blue Airlines, Simple Green, and by the girls volleyball team at Crean Lutheran South High who assisted in the event. The event raised $1,400 with some donations still to be collected.

Irvine Valley, which dressed in specially made pink uniforms, was led by sophomore outside hitter Katie Wilkerson (pictured, left). She finished with team highs in kills (18), digs (14) and aces (5).

Wilkerson had back-to-back kills in the fourth and final game to give IVC a 23-18 lead before she closed out the game and the match with another kill four points later.

Freshman Ellie Wiekmap paced IVC early on and finished with 17 kills. Hillary Crone (8 kills) and Caitlin Segert (6 kills) also contributed offensively for the Lasers.

Sophomore Nicole May added nine digs and sophomore setter Allie Hammer had a season-high 48 assists to go along with five digs for Irvine Valley, which stayed unbeaten on the season at 5-0.

Irvine Valley hadn’t played a match since Sept. 18 when it swept San Diego City on the road. The Lasers previous home game against Moorpark College had been canceled due to wildfires in the Moorpark area.

"At times we looked like a team that hadn’t played in a while," IVC Coach Tom Pestolesi said. "We were inconsistent and can play a lot better, but there were also some positives. We had some kids step up. Riverside was also pretty good. They are well coached and they really battled."

Riverside, which was ranked 21st in the state, saw its record slip to 7-3 overall.