Vaqueros seeded 5th in So Cal Regional, will open at No. 4 Fullerton

SBCC was seeded No. 5 for the Southern Cal Regional women's tennis playoffs.

The Vaqueros (16-3) will play a quarterfinal match at No. 4 Fullerton (12-7) on Tuesday at 2 p.m.

Santa Barbara is making its fourth trip to the regional in the last five years.

The Vaqueros went undefeated in Western State Conference play (14-0) and claimed their first WSC title in 18 years. Fullerton is the No. 4 team from the Orange Empire Conference and went 4-6 in conference.

The Orange Empire Conference got the top four seeds, led by unbeaten Orange Coast (18-0). Riverside (15-2) is the No. 2 seed, Irvine Valley (7-6) is No. 3 and Fullerton is No. 4. In other quarterfinals, No. 8 Grossmont will play at No. 1 Orange Coast, No. 7 Bakersfield will travel to No. 2 Riverside and No. 6 El Camino goes to No. 3 Irvine Valley.

The Vaqueros hosted Fullerton 17 days ago and dropped a 6-3 decision after splitting the singles, 3-3. SBCC was playing its third match in four days and had several injuries. No. 1 player Jamaica Buyse had to retire from her singles match after losing the first set, 6-0. She played the No. 1 doubles with her sister, Joica, and lost a tight 9-7 decision.

SBCC coach Christina Klein was prophetic in her post-match comments.

"Overall the girls played with heart and battled through different injuries across the board," she said on March 22. "I have a feeling when we're rested, we could come back and beat this team in the playoffs if we happened to face them."