The Long Beach City College women's water polo team picked up a pair of wins on Thursday in Day 1 of the 2012 South Coast Conference Championship tournament to earn a spot in Saturday's championship final match.

At the Cerritos College Aquatic Center, No. 2 seeded Long Beach (19-9, 8-1 SCC) cruised to a 20-5 win over No. 7 seed Rio Hondo College and then came back later in the day to edge No. 3 seed Chaffey College by a final score of 6-4 in the tournament semifinals.

Against Rio Hondo, LBCC held a 4-1 advantage after one quarter before pouring it on with six goals in the second to take a commanding 10-3 lead at halftime. Freshman Jessica Diaz led the Vikings in the rout with five goals while sophomore Christine MacLennan and freshman Ranya El-Tawil both scored four goals. Freshman Taylor Faust (pictured) posted six saves in goal for the Vikings.

Long Beach faced a bigger challenge against Chaffey in its afternoon contest. Just last week, LBCC needed overtime to defeat Chaffey 10-8 and today's match was just as close.

Long Beach trailed 3-2 at halftime before the Vikings came out firing in the third with three goals to take the lead for good. Sophomore Jackie Rojas added an insurance goal in the fourth with under two mintes left in the game and the Viking defense held Chaffey scoreless over the final 10 minutes to hold on for the win.
 
Rojas posted two goals to lead LBCC over Chaffey. Faust came up big for Long Beach in goal with 11 saves.

The Vikings will face crosstown rival Cerritos College on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. for the tournament title. Long Beach and Cerritos met once earlier this season with the Falcons pulling out a 12-11 overtime win at LBCC on September 19.

By qualifying for the conference championship game, both LBCC and Cerritos have secured spots for next week's (Nov. 8-10) Southern California Regional Championships at Fullerton College.

Photo by Chris Ruiz