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SOUTHERN
CALIFORNIA REGIONAL FINALS
Three of the top five ranked
teams in the state advanced from the South with regional final victories Saturday
night as No. 1 Orange Coast, No. 3 El Camino and No. 5 Los Angeles Pierce along
with upset winner No. 11 Irvine Valley moved on to the California Community
Colleges Commission on Athletics Women's Volleyball Championships Presented
by U.S. Bank Dec. 9-11 at Fresno's Selland Arena.
Seeded No. 1 in the South region, Orange Coast swept No. 17 Victor Valley, 30-13,
30-16, 30-16. The Orange Empire Conference champion Pirates remained the state's
only remaining undefeated team at 22-0, all 3-game sweeps.
Orange Empire MVP Kiwi Winkler led OCC with 16 kills, 11 digs and a season-best
six aces, while Brittney Ray added 10 kills and 16 digs. Sophomore setter Caitlin
Parker guided the Coast offense by dishing out 31 assists. Christina Ford led
Foothill Conference co-champion Victory Valley (19-2) with four kills while
Dana Ehlers tallied two kills and three blocks.
El Camino, the South Coast Conference champions, advanced to the State Final
Eight after being upended last year in the first round of the playoffs as the
No. 1 South seed against Cypress. The Warriors (20-1) took four games to knock
off No. 7 seed Citrus (17-5), 30-23, 30-26, 23-30, 30-27. Leading El Camino
was Bev Hazell with 15 kills and 21 digs, and Lindsey Spainhour with a double-double
of 15 kills, 10 digs. Lauren Taylor also doubled with 13 kills and 12 digs and
Taryn Tamblyn tallied 20 digs.
Irvine Valley, seeded a surprisingly low 11th in the South region, ended No.
3 seed and state 4th-ranked Ventura's 18-match winning streak with a 3-game
sweep on the road, 30-24, 30-22, 30-24. Against Ventura, the Lasers were paced
by outside hitter Natalie Dittrick with 16 kills and outside hitter Lauren Miller
with 14 kills and 13 digs. Sophomore Brittany Harkey powered 14 kills, six blocks
and had an impressive hitting percentage of .737 (19 attempts, 0 errors).
IVC setter Tiffany Hess contributed 48 assists and 13 digs. Ventura (18-2) lost
despite 15 kills by Danielle Falk, 28 digs from libero Loren Hannah, and 37
assists from setter Lisa Howard. All three are sophomores. The Lasers (16-6)
joined El Camino as the only teams to defeat Ventura (Western State North champions)
in best-of-5 game matches. Irvine Valley, the second place team in the OEC,
also had upset a No. 6 seed and state No. 8 San Diego Mesa in three games in
the first round.
Los Angeles Pierce (21-2) was the only South team to make it back to the State
Final Eight from last year's participants (Golden West, Cypress, San Diego Mesa
were the others). The Brahmas downed No. 5 seed and state No. 9 Cerritos in
a hard-fought four games, 30-24, 32-30, 27-30, 30-27. The Falcons (18-4) finished
the season with 12-kill performances from Shanell McMillen and Nancy Marin.
LA Pierce won the Western State Conference Southern Division title in the regular
season. Cerritos had put an end to Golden West's 12-year reign on the state
crown with a four-game win over the 12th seeded Rustlers in the first round.
Ironically, Cerritos was the last team to win the state crown before Golden
West in 1992.
In the history of the State Tournament, El Camino (1997), Orange Coast (2001),
and Irvine Valley (2003) all have finished runner-up to Golden West teams in
the past nine years. LA Pierce took fifth place last year in its first State
Tournament appearance in its history. Orange Coast has won three state titles
(1978, 1980, 1982) and El Camino captured two state crowns (1981 and 1983).
The '83 champion was led by tourney MVP LeValley Pattison, now the veteran head
coach of the Warriors.
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---Robert Lewis, CCCWVCA Publicist/Statistician, rmlewis@pasadena.edu
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