El Camino, LBCC Share Beach Volleyball Crown; Warriors Capture Pairs Title
El Camino and Long Beach City Colleges tied for the 2024 South Coast Conference Beach Volleyball team title with identical 8-2 records while the Warriors duo of Bridget Dorr and Ryan D'Angelo are the SCC Beach Pairs champions.
D'Angelo/Dorr, the tourney's #1 seed, rallied from a set down to defeat Long Beach's #7 seeded tandem of Taniea Allen and Makayla Curry, 11-21, 25-18, 15-12 in the championship finals at the SCC Pair Tournament held April 19-20 at Mt. San Antonio College.
Allen-Curry also managed to make a comeback in three sets to get past Mt. SAC's #3 seed Zyra Green and Andrea Brewer, 16-21, 21-19, 15-10 in the semifinals.
Dorr-D'Angelo swept their first three matches to advance to the finals. Dorr-D'Angelo had to beat their #5 ECC teammates in Erica Griffiths and Sophia Ortiz in the semis, 21-16, 21-16.
One of the big shockers was the early upset of the #2 seed in Rio Hondo's Jade Fuentes and Jaida Zuniga, who were surprised by Cerritos #15 pair of Jenni Solano and Emily Gutierrez, 21-23, 21-17, 15-3. The Falcons pair grabbed the final spot for the SoCal Pairs (see bottom of release for all the qualifiers).
The team championship came down to a 3-way showdown on April 12 in Long Beach with El Camino defeating Mt. SAC, 4-1, and getting past LBCC, 3-2. Because El Camino won both of its conference matches v. the Vikings, the Warriors earned the #1 seed coming out the South Coast.
El Camino (14-6 overall) wins its second beach volleyball conference team title (the other in 2022) while it's the third for Long Beach (14-5), which won in the first two seasons of the SCC sport in 2018 and 2019. There were no champions in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mt. SAC (18-4) settled for third place with a 7-3 conference record while Rio Hondo (14-7) placed fourth at 5-5.
UPDATED 4/27--The SoCal Team Regional Playoffs are set for Tuesday, April 30 with El Camino a host as the #4 seed, joined there by #5 Long Beach City (and #12 Irvine Valley). Mt. San Antonio is the #6 seed playing at #3 MiraCosta (with #11 Santa Monica) while Rio Hondo is #10 at #2 Ventura (and #7 San Diego Miramar).
SoCal Regional Pairs Qualifiers
#1 Dorr-D'Angelo, El Camino
#2 Allen-Curry, Long Beach
#3 Green-Brewer, Mt. SAC
#4 Griffiths-Ortiz, El Camino
#5 Candace Ceballos-Angelina Griego, Mt. SAC
#6 Maria Bejines-Osyris Roldan, Rio Hondo
#7 Solano-Gutierrez, Cerritos
Allen-Curry pair for Long Beach
