Even if the second string was on the court for the Warriors; tonight’s win was important to the team going into playoffs.

Unfortunately for the home-team Beavers, the win came easy for El Camino’s men’s volleyball team.

After winning the first set, and leading 17-12 in the second set, one of the Beavers’ players went down, twisting his knee.

He would attempt to come back in to the game, only to tell the referee he could not handle the pressure on his knee.

The Beavers would only have five eligible players, forcing the L.A. Trade Tech College team to forfeit the match.

“It sucks to see a player on the other team get hurt,” sophomore setter Nick Jimenez said. “We’ll take the win, but it just sucks to see.”

El Camino’s men’s volleyball team improves to 9-7 overall and 6-3 in the Western State Conference after the L.A. Trade Tech College Beavers (0-11, 0-9) are forced to forfeit the match tonight.

Fortunately for the Warriors, this gives the team a two-game cushion over Moorpark College (depending on the outcome of the Moorpark/Santa Barbara match today).

“We’ve been in playoffs the last five years,” EC coach Dick Blount said. “It’s important for us to be in playoffs six years (in a row).”

The team can potentially be the second seed going into playoffs if it can pull out wins against Santa Monica College, Santa Barbara City College and Long Beach City College; sophomore middle blocker Peter Nordel thinks it’s best to get the second seed.

“There’s a really big difference (between second and third),” Nordel said. “If we’re third, we’re going to be in Long Beach’s bracket, and (LBCC is) probably playing the best in the state right now.”

But Blount doesn’t care about the hypotheticals.

“We don’t forecast much,” he said. “It just gets complicated, and all we can control is the first serve against Long Beach (at home on Wednesday at 6 p.m. in the South Gym).”