No. 2 Orange Coast sweeps No. 1 Long Beach City to claim 2022 CCCAA Men's Volleyball State Championship
TORRANCE - For the eighth time in program history and first since 2017, Orange Coast College has claimed the California Community College Athletics Association Men's Volleyball State Championship.
The No. 2 Pirates downed No. 1 Long Beach 3-0 (25-22, 25-21, 25-22) in the CCCAA State Championship final on Saturday night at the El Camino College Gym Complex in Torrance, Calif.
Despite the sweep, the victory was anything but easy for the Pirates (20-1) as the teams were tied 24 times and traded the lead on nine occasions. The biggest lead in the match was seven points for the Pirates near the end of the third set.
In the end, though, it was the Pirates who found a way to come out on top in each set thanks in large part to All-Tournament Most Valuable Player Will Anderson who led all players in the match with 10 kills. Cash Adamsen added nine, DiAeris McRaven tallied seven including the title clinching smash through the Vikings' block.
For the Vikings (18-3) All-Tournament selection Julian Zavala and Coby Prowse led the way with eight kills apiece and Alfred Dougherty added seven.
It was the third meeting between the teams this season with each team winning on their home floor in five sets in the previous two on Feb. 5 at OCC and Feb. 11 at LBCC.
The Vikings finish the year with two of their three losses coming at the hands of the Pirates.
In the first set, both teams refused to relent much room to the other as there were 12 ties and six lead changes. Anderson (4), Adamsen (3), and McRaven (3) provided the offense for the Pirates, combining for 10 of the team's 12 kills in the opening frame. For the Vikings, Zavala and Dougherty each hammered down four kills with Hernandez adding three in the losing effort.
The Pirates took a critical two set lead in the second despite trailing most of the way. The game turned thanks to a 7-1 scoring run with the Vikings up 13-7. The Pirates erased the Vikings' biggest lead of the match thanks to kills from Sam Warren, Jake Diddy and Anderson along with a couple of errors from the Vikings during the run.
Anderson put a cap on the run on his serve, dialing up a kill and consecutive service aces to tie the score at 14-14. The teams went back-and-forth until the score was tied 21-21. At that point, the Pirates rode Josh Friedman's serve to victory, closing the set with four straight points capped by another Anderson kill.
In the third, the Pirates erased a 15-10 Vikings lead with another scoring run. They ran off 10 of the next 11 points to take a 20-16 advantage. The Pirates would push their lead to 24-17 but the Vikings would not go quietly.
They fought off five straight championship points with two kills from Prowse, one from Sean Nguyen, a block by Prowse and Luke Bissell and an attack error by McRaven.
But McRaven made up for that with the championship clincher, blasting the ball through the block set by Bissell and Geoffrey Mike, off the right arm of Nguyen and into the sea of Vikings fans in the stands, igniting a celebration for the Pirates and the OCC contingent on hand.
The Pirates finish the year with the highest winning percentage (.952) in the CCCAA. They were the only 20-win team and the only program in the state with one loss.
2022 CCCAA Men's Volleyball State Championship All-Tournament Team
MVP: Will Anderson, Orange Coast
Cash Adamsen, Orange Coast
Josh Friedman, Orange Coast
Kyler Tufuga, Long Beach City
Julian Zavala, Long Beach City
Adam Schulte, Irvine Valley
Andrew White, El Camino
(Rafael Guerrero, CCCSIA)