The562’s coverage of Millikan athletics in the 2023-24 school year is sponsored by Curtis Boyer.
The562’s coverage of Long Beach Wilson Athletics is sponsored by Joel Bitonio, Class of 2009.
After the first set of their match against Millikan, Wilson was down 4-1 and looked like they would settle for being co-Moore League beach volleyball champions again as the Rams put their best foot forward against the Bruins. But Wilson rallied Thursday afternoon at LBCC as they rallied to defeat Millikan 3-2 – with the final two matches tying things up and eventually giving Bruins the win and a Moore League championship. The Bruins were co-champions with Long Beach Poly last year in the sport’s inaugural official season.
“Unbelievable,” Wilson coach Jeremy Cook said. “Credit to Millikan, they were kicking our butt after that game one. Our girls to their credit fought and honestly there was a long stretch there where we didn’t think it was our day.”
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After Kate Eckenrode and Simrin Adams won their first set in flight one, Millikan took the next four flights to put Millikan in the driver’s seat needing only three duos to come away with one more win to secure the victory for the Rams.
But, much like the Bruins did in the first match between the two, Wilson battled back as the Bruins forced a third set on court two and five after the Rams took the wins on court three and four.
Eckenrode and Adams defeated Millikan’s Olivia Smith and Sofia Orbiso to give Wilson an early lead.
“It was really exciting,” Eckenrode said. “We thought we were done, when our last four teams lost the first game, but then we were able to come back and our twos and fives did a really good job coming back.”
Peyton Agura and Audrey Kovacs stormed back to defeat Millikan’s Aubrey Greere and Grace Berger 13-21, 21-19, 15-12.
And shortly after Agura and Kovacs won their match, Milan Lewis and Dani Dobie defeated Millikan’s Beth Arnold and Lila Walters, 12-21, 21-19 and 15-11 to secure the win and lock in Wilson as the Moore League champion.
“To me this made everything worth it – it made the transfer worth it,” Lewis said after transferring from Millikan to Wilson. “This made me really proud to see that I could play for this great program and I’m really happy that we took the dub.”
While her team didn’t close out the win, Millikan coach Kyra Cox was proud of her team’s development.
“I was not sure where we were going to stand,” Cox said. “Last year we were battling for third with Lakewood and this year, it’s just been a world of improvement and we put in a lot of time at the beginning of the season to make sure we had our fundamentals and a deep bench.
The Moore League duals season will conclude next week with a pairs tournament following Spring Break and CIF Southern Section postseason play after that.
