Ruby Cochrane and Olga Nikolaeva epitomized the mindset Mira Costa brought to Saturday afternoon\u2019s Southern Section Division 1 girls\u2019 beach volleyball championship match at Long Beach City College.<\/p>\n
Trailing 13-9 in the deciding third set of their match against JSerra\u2019s top duo of Sara Moynihan and Emma Champagne, the Stanford-bound seniors rallied to win the last six points and complete the Mustangs\u2019 5-0 sweep to reclaim the title they lost 3-2 to league rival Redondo Union last spring.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted to end our senior year with a bang and not be the only pair to lose,\u201d Cochrane said.<\/p>\n
Upon receiving the championship plaque, players formed a circle and took turns kissing it as they passed it around.<\/p>\n
Mira Costa captured its third title in four tries since the CIF sanctioned the sport in 2023 and when you add the eight Interscholastic Beach Volleyball League titles the Mustangs won prior to that they deserve to be called queens of the beach.<\/p>\n
Our coach was like, \u2018you\u2019re capable of coming back,\u2019 so we had to do it,\u201d Nikolaeva added. \u201cRuby is one of my best friends and we have a great bond.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Mustangs\u2019 other four tandems each won in straight sets \u2014 Allyn Hilt and Lily Sprague at No. 2; Lily Vandeweghe and Lucy Matuszak at No. 3; Sofia Sala and Samantha Nammack at No. 4 and Lily Enfield and Lerin Rosenthal at the No. 5 spot.<\/p>\n
Mira Costa (24-1) is 75-3 in four seasons of CIF Southern Section competition, including 67-0 against every team other than Redondo Union, against which it holds an 8-3 advantage. The Mustangs improved to 5-0 against the Lions (17-3), who upset Redondo Union in the semifinals.<\/p>\n
The Mustangs have won 14 of 15 sets in their three Division 1 finals victories.<\/p>\n
DIVISION 2<\/p>\n
Bishop Montgomery, making its first finals appearance, prevailed 3-2 over Edison thanks to the heroics of sophomore twins Hailey and Alyssa Waters, who clinched the championship with a 13-21, 21-17, 15-12 victory over the Chargers\u2019 tandem of Sydney Kershaw and Emery Oakes.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing twins causes fighting but we\u2019ve always played together and our connection makes us stronger,\u201d Alyssa said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore that last set we took a minute to talk to each other,\u201d Hailey added. \u201cWe knew what we were doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Knights\u2019 No. 1 duo of sisters Stacy and Stephanie Balestrieri and the No. 4 duo of Kendall McKechnie and Carli Duda both won in straight sets.<\/p>\n
DIVISION 3<\/p>\n
Freshmen Hannah Martin and Lucy Morris earned the decisive point with a 21-16, 22-20 win on Court 5 in Long Beach Millikan\u2019s 4-1 triumph over Windward.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t know the score or what was going on in the other matches,\u201d Martin said. \u201c:Lucy and I were just focusing on ours. We\u2019re really close friends but this is our first time playing together in CIF. We both play indoor too but in beach you have to have more trust because it\u2019s only two of you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Madison Jones and Johanna Swerdloff won 21-17, 16-21, 15-8 at No. 2, Bella Bonales and Estale Lopez won 21-15, 21-18 at No. 3 and Olivia Vits and Samantha Guman won 21-12, 21-15 at No. 4 for the Rams (14-7), who lost to Long Beach Wilson in the Division 2 final last year.<\/p>\n
Millikan is the third Moore League school to win a Southern Section title in the brief history of the sport, joining Wilson and Long Beach Poly, who won Divisions 2 and 3 last year. The Bay League is only other with multiple champions (Mira Costa and Redondo Union).<\/p>\n
DiVISION 4<\/p>\n
In the first finals appearance for both programs, Oak Park swept the last four courts to claim the inaugural Division 4 crown against Campbell Hall, a Division 3 semifinalist last season. Seniors Athena Trewyn and Kaela Raquel won 19-21, 21-19, 15-12 on Court 3 to notch the clinching point for the Eagles (11-5).<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve never made it past the quarterfinals and we didn\u2019t even make the playoffs last year,\u201d said second-year coach Josh Giron, whose team practices at North Ranch Playfield in Thousand Oaks, a 30-minute drive from campus. \u201cWe have one court for 20 girls and sometimes we have to cancel practice because another team\u2019s using it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ruby Cochrane and Olga Nikolaeva epitomized the mindset Mira Costa brought to Saturday afternoon\u2019s Southern Section Division 1…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[4598,8825,125255,125257,125260,63272,1545,125256,125258,100163,2194,125259,48,52,51,35225,5814,47,50,49,7555],"class_list":["post-297517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-birmingham","tag-boy","tag-champ-palisades","tag-city-girl","tag-city-section-dominance","tag-city-title","tag-dolphin","tag-dolphins-dynasty","tag-final-horn","tag-girl-team","tag-goal","tag-jayden-ruiz","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-lacrosse","tag-lead","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-second-quarter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}