The Long Beach City College women's volleyball team was two points away from wrapping up its second consecutive five-set victory, but the Vikings couldn't close it out and instead suffered a 22-25, 25-23, 21-25, 25-22, 15-13 loss to the rival Cerritos College Falcons on Wednesday at LBCC.
The South Coast Conference loss dropped Long Beach to 6-9 overall and 3-3 in the SCC. Cerritos won its fifth straight match to improve to 8-6 and 5-1 in conference play.
Long Beach was up 2-1 after taking the first and third sets. Cerritos was able to hold off a Viking rally that got them within two points late in the fourth at 22-20 to force a deciding fifth set.
In the fifth, LBCC jumped out to an early 6-3 lead and was in control late going ahead 13-11 after a kill by sophomore Bra'shawnda Byrd (Poly HS). But Cerritos rallied for the final four points to steal the victory. Jasmynne Roberts nailed one of her match-high 27 kills, Sara Hickman connected for back-to-back kills, and a block by Jasmin Mitchell closed out the Falcon win.
Byrd led the Vikings with 21 kills while freshman Chanel Brown (Lancaster HS) added 17 kills and four blocks. Freshman Emily Hammond (Brethren Christian HS) had team-highs of 37 assists and 25 digs. Also, freshman Ariel Sakaria (Jordan HS) had a good match with seven aces and 10 digs.
Roberts was all over the court for Cerritos. She had 80 attempts on the night and also led the Falcons with 17 digs. Hickman added 17 kills to go with 15 digs.
Long Beach returns to action on Friday (Oct. 24) when it travels to East Los Angeles College for a 6 p.m. conference match.