{"id":297577,"date":"2026-05-03T05:35:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T05:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/297577\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T05:35:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T05:35:12","slug":"mira-costa-girls-beach-volleyball-wins-third-cif-ss-championship-in-four-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/297577\/","title":{"rendered":"Mira Costa girls beach volleyball wins third CIF-SS championship in four years"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mira<\/p>\n

Mira Costa High School players celebrate after winning a match during the CIF Southern Section girls beach volleyball Division 1 championship against JSerra High School at Long Beach City College in Long Beach, California, Saturday, May 2, 2026. (Photo by Mark Savage, Contributing Photographer)\n<\/p>\n

\"Sara<\/p>\n

Sara Moynihan of JSerra High School dives to return the ball during the CIF Southern Section girls beach volleyball Division 1 championship against Mira Costa High School at Long Beach City College in Long Beach, California, Saturday, May 2, 2026. (Photo by Mark Savage, Contributing Photographer)\n<\/p>\n

\"Sara<\/p>\n

Sara Moynihan of JSerra High School dives to return the ball during the CIF Southern Section girls beach volleyball Division 1 championship against Mira Costa High School at Long Beach City College in Long Beach, California, Saturday, May 2, 2026. (Photo by Mark Savage, Contributing Photographer)\n<\/p>\n

\"Mira<\/p>\n

Mira Costa High School players and coaches pose with the championship plaque after winning the CIF Southern Section girls beach volleyball Division 1 championship against JSerra High School at Long Beach City College in Long Beach, California, Saturday, May 2, 2026. (Photo by Mark Savage, Contributing Photographer)\n<\/p>\n

\"Olga<\/p>\n

Olga Nikolaeva of Mira Costa High School returns a serve during the CIF Southern Section girls beach volleyball Division 1 championship against JSerra High School at Long Beach City College in Long Beach, California, Saturday, May 2, 2026. (Photo by Mark Savage, Contributing Photographer)\n<\/p>\n

\"Olga<\/p>\n

Olga Nikolaeva of Mira Costa High School reaches to return the ball during the CIF Southern Section girls beach volleyball Division 1 championship against JSerra High School at Long Beach City College in Long Beach, California, Saturday, May 2, 2026. (Photo by Mark Savage, Contributing Photographer)\n<\/p>\n

\"Nancy<\/p>\n

Nancy Reynolds, coach of Mira Costa High School, celebrates with her players after they won the CIF Southern Section girls beach volleyball Division 1 championship against JSerra High School at Long Beach City College in Long Beach, California, Saturday, May 2, 2026. (Photo by Mark Savage, Contributing Photographer)\n<\/p>\n

\"Mira<\/p>\n

Mira Costa High School players celebrate after winning the CIF Southern Section girls beach volleyball Division 1 championship against JSerra High School at Long Beach City College in Long Beach, California, Saturday, May 2, 2026. (Photo by Mark Savage, Contributing Photographer)\n<\/p>\n

\"Nancy<\/p>\n

Nancy Reynolds, coach of Mira Costa High School, celebrates with her players after they won the CIF Southern Section girls beach volleyball Division 1 championship against JSerra High School at Long Beach City College in Long Beach, California, Saturday, May 2, 2026. (Photo by Mark Savage, Contributing Photographer)\n<\/p>\n

\"Mira<\/p>\n

Mira Costa High School players celebrate after winning the CIF Southern Section girls beach volleyball Division 1 championship against JSerra High School at Long Beach City College in Long Beach, California, Saturday, May 2, 2026. (Photo by Mark Savage, Contributing Photographer)\n<\/p>\n

Show Caption<\/p>\n

1 of 10<\/p>\n

Mira Costa High School players celebrate after winning a match during the CIF Southern Section girls beach volleyball Division 1 championship against JSerra High School at Long Beach City College in Long Beach, California, Saturday, May 2, 2026. (Photo by Mark Savage, Contributing Photographer)\n<\/p>\n

Expand<\/a><\/p>\n

LONG BEACH \u2014 Mira Costa\u2019s girls beach volleyball team didn\u2019t let one brief hiccup derail its pursuit of a CIF Southern Section Division 1 championship.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis group came in with a little bit of a chip on their shoulder after losing here last year,\u201d Mira Costa coach Nancy Reynolds said. \u201cWe were very prepared. Each court, each girl, all season long. That was our motto.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mira Costa swept JSerra 5-0 Saturday, winning 10 of a possible 11 sets to regain the Division I title, after losing last season to Redondo Union, at Long Beach City College.<\/p>\n

Since beach volleyball became a CIF-SS sanctioned sport in 2023, Mira Costa has won three CIF-SS championships.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything we did this season was to hopefully get to this moment,\u201d Reynolds said. \u201cWhen we got here, in our minds we had already done it. Preparation was super key.\u201d<\/p>\n

Needing each of its five pairings to win two of three sets, Mira Costa (26-1) won its first five sets and quickly put itself in position to clinch in the second round of matches.<\/p>\n

After the No. 4 pairing (Sofia Sala and Sammy Nammack) won 21-9, 21-17 and No. 3 pairing (Lily Vandeweghe and Lucy Matusak) followed with a 21-15, 21-12 victory, the championship came down to Mira Costa\u2019s No. 5 tandem of Lerin Rosenthal and Lily Enfield.<\/p>\n

Rosenthal and Enfield trailed 19-17 late in the second set before rallying for a 21-19 win to clinch the title. The duo won the opening set 21-14.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had to take a step back. We were very high energy,\u201d Rosenthal said. \u201cWe both needed to just take a break and reset, focus on getting a good serve and a good pass.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mira Costa\u2019s No. 2 pairing of Allyn Hilt and Lily Sprague won their match 21-17, 21-16.<\/p>\n

Rosenthal said it was difficult to contain her emotions while waiting for the rest of the team to finish, even after helping clinch the championship.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was extremely difficult to maintain my emotions until the entire match was over,\u201d Rosenthal said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been having really high energy all day, we had a very exciting warmup and an exciting pep talk, so I had very high adrenaline the whole day, including during my match.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the final point was played in Olga Nikolaeva and Ruby Cochrane\u2019s three-set match \u2014 21-19, 17-21, 15-13 \u2014 the Mustangs were finally able to celebrate as a team, even dousing Reynolds with water after receiving the CIF-SS plaque.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was pure joy, honestly,\u201d Rosenthal said. \u201cCelebrating with my team has never felt better. Just the best girls I can be surrounded by, all coming together and celebrating our win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even after Mira Costa had clinched the championship, Nikolaeva maintained a business-as-usual mindset while finishing off JSerra\u2019s top pairing of Sara Moynihan and Emma Champagne.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew (we had clinched the title),\u201d Nikolaeva said. \u201cI feel like the girls were talking about it and I overheard it, but it doesn\u2019t matter. At the end of the day, you want to sweep. You have to play the hardest no matter whether you win or lose.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mira Costa didn\u2019t get the rematch it wanted against rival Redondo Union\u2014 the team responsible for its only regular-season loss and last year\u2019s championship defeat \u2014 but the Mustangs still bookended their season with victories over JSerra, with Saturday\u2019s win carrying far greater significance.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a very successful season,\u201d Rosenthal said. \u201cI love these girls. They\u2019re my best friends and it\u2019s a lot of emotions right now. I\u2019m so happy that we won, but it\u2019s definitely heartbreaking to be done with this season.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mira Costa High School players celebrate after winning a match during the CIF Southern Section girls beach volleyball…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[2044,6002,131,133,132,127,126114,16227],"class_list":["post-297577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-high-school-sports","tag-high-school-volleyball","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-sports","tag-tbr-sports","tag-the-beach-reporter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297577","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=297577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}