The Long Beach City College women's volleyball team came out on the heart-breaking end of a five-set loss, falling to No. 16 state-ranked Mt. San Antonio College 17-25, 23-25, 25-21, 25-19, 15-12 in a South Coast Conference match on Wednesday night at LBCC.
It was the fourth time this season the Vikings lost to a state-ranked team in five sets and third time over those four matches LBCC was up 2-0 and couldn't put its opponent away.
The loss dropped Long Beach to 10-10 overall and 6-6 in the SCC while Mt. SAC kept its conference title hopes alive with a 17-4 overall record and 10-2 conference mark.
Long Beach got an amazing effort from sophomore outside hitter Danielle Tuitasi (pictured). She did all she could to put the Vikings in a winning position by posting match-highs of 16 kills, 22 digs, and four aces.
LBCC stunned Mt. SAC taking the first set thanks to an impressive .417 hitting percentage before the Mounties opened Set 2 with a 7-1 advantage. The Vikings responded with five straight points thanks to a pair of kills by freshman Jasmine Caldwell, a kill by sophomore Celina Yandall, and an ace by freshman Lauren Moreno to get back in the set at 7-6.
Mt. SAC would continue to fight off the Vikings for the remainder of the second. The second was tied 12, 14, and 20 before Long Beach finally went ahead for good. Caldwell had three kills and a Mt. SAC attack error gave LBCC set point at 24-20. The Mounties didn't go down easy and rallied for a block by Sandra Gutierrez and Leau Quiocho and a kill by Chelsea Wolf to make the score 24-22. But Alexsandra Ramos' ensuing serve went into the net to give the Vikings a 2-0 lead looking for the sweep.
From that point, Mt. SAC controlled the rest of the match. The Mounties held leads of 14-7 and 19-10 in the third before holding off a late Vikings' rally that got them within three points at 23-20.
It was more of the same in Set 4 as Mt. SAC jumped out in front 6-2 and was up 16-9 and 20-13. Long Beach once again rallied to make this interesting, getting a pair of aces from Tuitasi, a kill by Caldwell, and two Mt. SAC errors to get within three at 20-18. But the Mounties scored five of the next six points to force a deciding fifth set.
Set 5 started close as the teams were tied 4-4 before Mt. SAC slowly pulled away. A kill by Saleen Sanchez gave the Mounties an 8-6 advantage before the court switch. Mt. SAC was leading 12-9 before LBCC made another late push. A Yandall kill and consecutive kills by sophomore Kaitlyn McMahon tied up the set at 12-12.
But on the following points, Yandall was called for a blocking error, Vianna Delgado served up an ace, LBCC freshman setter Sami Uepa was called for a double-hit to give Mt. SAC the set and match.
Long Beach had numerous outstanding statistical performances, getting 12 kills from Caldwell and 11 kills from McMahon. Yandall had nine kills to go with 13 digs, while freshman Lauren Moreno had 15 digs. Uepa led all with 52 assists.
Sanchez led Mt. SAC with 15 kills to go with 11 digs. Gutierrez had 13 kills and six blocks.
LBCC closes out the 2012 regular-season schedule with two more home matches. The Vikings host Los Angeles Trade Tech College on Friday (Nov. 9) and close out the season November 14 against East Los Angeles College; both matches are set for 6 p.m.
Photo by John Fajardo
