The Long Beach City College women’s volleyball team practices for any situation.
So, when the Vikings had to start their SoCal Regional Championship match against Cerritos with a new starting lineup LBCC knew what to do.
They leaned on their situational volleyball on their way to a 25-17, 21-25, 25-17, 26-24 win over Palomar Saturday night to win the SoCal Regional Championship and punch their ticket to next week’s state tournament.
With middle Hadassah Odeyale back in action LBCC has one key part of their starting lineup back but with All-American Enaya Vaielua sitting out to start the match, freshman Camille Agrupis was thrust into the starting setter role for LBCC.
“I was really excited with the opportunity to run that rotation,” Agrupis said. “We were trying new tempos with my middles and Aus just over I was just trying to find a rhythm with running the offense. And I was really excited and I’m glad that I was able to run with, like, big energy on the court and to take on that set.”
The Vikings dominated the first set on their way to a 25-17 win and Agrupis was a catalyst for the offense a took a 14-10 lead and didn’t look back. Odeyale and Ryannah Gagau each had 4 kills to lead the team.
“Some stuff happened this weekend, we had to switch up our lineup, people are hurt, people are out, things are going on,” LBCC coach Tyler Jackson said of the starting lineup adjustments. “I think it just shows the depth that we talked about the last game.”
After the the first set, Vaielua was back in the starting lineup – however, the Vikings went on to lose the set 25-21 – which set a fire under Vaielus after having to sit for the first set.
“When we lost the second set, it was like, ‘No way, like, we never wanted to drop a set until we got to state’,” Vaielua said. “So dropping it now was just like, no, we wanted to just win, go out and play for each other.”
While Palomar got off to some quick starts in the next two sets with their change-of-tempo setting – the Vikings depth started to shine as Gagau, Jubilee Allen, Tainea Allen, Allan Jones and Danika Iosua each had five or more kills in the match.
Vaielua said that the team’s motto “Take It personal” has allowed them to push each other and keep each other in check.
“We’ve practiced really hard, and then, like, we just we all hold each other accountable for everything that we do, so if one person misses, then it’s like, we all, like we all suffer from that one miss,” Vaielua said.
The Vikings will now head to Mt. SAC next week for the State Tournament.
