Women’s Soccer: Long Beach earns No. 13 seed for SoCal Regional Playoffs

The Long Beach City College women's soccer team has received an at-large bid into the 2011 Southern California Regionals Playoffs. The LBCC women earned the No. 13 seed and will travel to face No. 4 Santiago Canyon College in a first-round match on Saturday (Nov. 19) at 2 pm. The playoff pairings were announced on Tuesday afternoon at the Southern California coaches postseason meeting at Fullerton College.

The Vikings closed out the regular season by taking second place in an always tough South Coast Conference with a 9-4-1 record. LBCC enters the postseason with a 13-6-1 overall record.

Long Beach makes its second straight playoff appearance under co-head coaches Alex Camargo and Melissa Douglas and has qualified for the postseason in 12 of the past 13 years. Long Beach has won a California Community College record six state championships overall (1997, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2005).

Perennial power Santiago Canyon was champion of the Orange Empire Conference with a 14-1-1 conference mark and closed the regular season with a 18-1-1 overall record. Santiago Canyon has won state championships in 2006 and 2009.

Saturday will be the first meeting between the two squads in seven years. On November 23, 2004, Long Beach defeated Santiago Canyon 1-0 in a third-round SoCal playoff game at LBCC that sent the Vikings to the state championships.

The winner of Saturday's game will advance to face either No. 5 Cuyamaca or No. 12 Chaffey in a second-round game on November 22. Three wins in the SoCal playoffs will advance Long Beach to the California Community College Athletic Association (CCCAA) Soccer State Championships on November 2 and 4 at Cosumnes River College in Sacramento.