Women’s Volleyball: Vikings close season with sweep of East Los Angeles

The 2013 Long Beach City College women's volleyball season came to a close following a 27-25, 25-8, 25-14 South Coast Conference sweep of visiting East Los Angeles College on Wednesday night at LBCC.

The Vikings go out on a winning note as they ended the year with a four-match winning streak including sweeps in their final three.  The Vikings end the season with an 11-12 overall record and finished fourth in the SCC at 8-6.

"We finished strong," said eight-year LBCC head coach Suzie Witmer. "I'm proud of this team. It was great to go out with four straight wins. We are losing a bunch of sophomores, so hopefully our freshmen can carry this over to next season."

In Wednesday's victory, Long Beach had to outlast East Los Angeles in the opener before using a pair of big runs to pull away in the second and third sets.

Set 1 was close and saw 12 ties. The Vikings had set-point at 24-22 but couldn't put the Huskies away. East LA rallied to tie it up at 24 after kills by Stephanie Ortiz and Jessica Castillo. An ELAC error put LBCC up 25-24, but Castillo came up with another kill to tie the set a final time at 25. A kill by Long Beach sophomore Lauren Moreno (Wilson HS) and a hitting error by Ortiz gave the Vikings the marathon victory.

Set 2 was all Long Beach. With the Vikings holding a narrow 8-7 lead, LBCC rallied for next 13 points behind the serving of freshman Brianna Ritzius (St. Anthony HS). She supplied three aces to aid the surge and LBCC closed out the second winning 17 of the final 18 points.

Another run by the Vikings in the third brought home the sweep. Long Beach was down 11-12 but came up with 12 consecutive points, backed by the serving of sophomore Andrea Morales (Los Alamitos HS). She posted five aces in the run and sophomore Michaelah Brown (Paramount HS) had three blocks. Ritzius' fourth ace of the night wrapped up the victory to end the season for the Vikings.

Sophomore Vashti Nettles (Poly HS) led LBCC with eight kills to go with four blocks. Morales, Brown, and Moreno all added six kills and Ritzius had a match-high 17 digs. Also playing in her final match, sophomore setter Melissa Yepez (Paramount HS) posted 23 assists, five digs, four kills, and three blocks.