South continues to be unpredictable in State Top 25 women's volleyball rankings

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While #1 Fresno City College (20-2) and 2019 defending state champion and #2 Feather River (20-1) have established themselves as far and away the top women's volleyball teams in NorCal, SoCal can certainly be a lively debate on who are the best teams. Upsets and isolated head-to-head matchups have produced a group of teams that could argue how high they should be in this week's CCCWVCA State Top 25 rankings.

Pasadena City College (13-1) has stood at #3 in the state ranking and the top South rating thanks to a 10-match win streak, an 8-0 record to lead the South Coast Conference, and a key season-opening quad victory over #5 Cypress. The Chargers (16-1) haven't lost since that match and top the Orange Empire Conference (10-0) with the state's longest current win streak at 15 in a row. 

Bakersfield is 10-1, leading the Western State Conference South Division (5-0) and occupies the #6 slot. The Renegades only loss was a 3-set defeat on Sept. 4 against current #11 San Diego Mesa and this is where the debates kick into high gear. Bakersfield holds the current highest RPI among South teams which will help determine the ultimate seedings for the postseason. 

Mt. San Antonio (12-4) climbed back into the state Top 10 at #10. The Mounties have some big wins, including a sweep over #12 Moorpark, a team that handed Pasadena its only defeat (five sets on Sept. 3). Mt. SAC also has three close quality losses, all in five sets against Pasadena, Bakersfield and #13 Santa Barbara City. Mt. SAC has an important South Coast matchup on Wednesday at PCC where a Mounties win certainly could alter future rankings. 

Besides its marquee victory over Bakersfield, SD Mesa (13-4) has 4-set wins over both Moorpark and Santa Barbara. However, the Olympians were recently swept by fellow Pacific Coast Athletic Conference rival and #17 Grossmont and have a 5-set loss to #18 Irvine Valley. Those two teams only current high-end wins are against Mesa.

Grossmont (10-2) does have 5-set wins over #19 MiraCosta (beat Irvine Valley) and #22 Fullerton, but a loss to #25 Canyons allows for questions on where it belongs in the rankings. Irvine Valley, the state finalist in 2019 and the only South team to win state titles (two of them) since 2013, has losses v. two teams the Lasers are currently ahead of in MiraCosta and #21 Golden West (swept). 

Venturing back up the rankings, Santa Barbara was sitting pretty in the top 10 but dropped with a 4-set loss to Moorpark coupled with a shaky 5-set win over unranked Rio Hondo. The Vaqueros have a sparkling 15-3 record, including wins over Mt. SAC, #14 Ventura (sweep), #16 Sequoias, Fullerton and Canyons. Ventura turned the WSC North into a 3-team race as it is 12-3, including a win over Moorpark (also lost to Moorpark in a tourney match in five sets) and its only other defeat is against Pasadena. 

A few OEC teams could argue what about us in #20 Orange Coast (13-2), a 5-set loser to Irvine Valley and a 4-set defeat against Cypress, and Golden West, who swept Irvine, lost in five to the Pirates, but also lost in five to Fullerton (10-9), who lost to Saddleback, a team that briefly was on the Top 25 and has only that one quality victory. Fullerton's record is deceiving as well as the Hornets have nothing but quality defeats in reaching five sets only to lose against Mesa, SBCC and Grossmont while also having a 4-set loss v. Mt. SAC. Irvine downed Fullerton in three last week. 

Then you have Canyons, who played a difficult opening schedule, but has a win over Grossmont. It's no wonder, the SoCal is full of question marks and a few upsets from becoming a free-for-all. 

In the North, state #4 and Coast Conference South Division first-place West Valley (12-3) has settled in its spot while Big 8 Conference leader Sierra (12-6) is en fuego and jumped into the Top 10 at #8. American River (16-5) earned the #9 spot. Cabrillo is an interesting team at #15 as the Seahawks had their 121-match Coast Conference win streak snapped by San Mateo on Oct. 8 in four sets.

Cabrillo (7-5) has wins over San Mateo (five sets at Delta Classic) and Sequoias. San Joaquin Delta moved up slightly to #23 while Butte (13-3) entered the Top 25 for the first time in 2021 at #24.

Here's a breakdown of the conference races (state rank # listed only):

NORTH

Bay Valley--unranked Solano 6-0, Yuba 4-1, Marin 4-2, Los Medanos 4-2
Big 8--#8 Sierra 8-0, #9 American River 7-1, #23 San Joaquin Delta 6-2
Central Valley--#1 Fresno 9-0 (holds an amazing streak of 137 consecutive wins and now 81 straight sets won in conference play), #16 Sequoias 7-2, Taft 7-2
Coast North--#7 San Mateo 4-0, #15 Cabrillo 3-1, Hartnell 3-1
Coast South--#4 West Valley 5-0, Monterey Peninsula 3-1
Golden Valley--#2 Feather River 3-0 (won 36 in a row in GVC play), #24 Butte 3-0, Shasta 2-1

SOUTH

Inland Empire Athletic--unranked Mt. San Jacinto 3-0, Chaffey 3-1, Desert 2-1
Orange Empire--#5 Cypress 8-0, #18 Irvine Valley 6-2, #20 Orange Coast 6-2, #21 Golden West 5-3, #22 Fullerton 4-4, Saddleback 4-4
Pacific Coast Athletic--#17 Grossmont 5-0, #11 San Diego Mesa 6-1, #19 MiraCosta 5-2
South Coast--#3 Pasadena 8-0, #10 Mt. San Antonio 6-2, El Camino 7-3, Long Beach City 7-3
Western State North--#14 Ventura 4-1, #12 Moorpark 4-1, #13 Santa Barbara 3-1
Western State South--#6 Bakersfield 5-0, Santa Monica 4-1, #25 Canyons 3-1

Release by Robert Lewis, CCCWVCA SID/Rankings Coordinator