Women’s Water Polo: Long Beach returns to state tournament for 10th straight year, take second at SoCals

The state championship tournament is a very familiar place for the Long Beach City College women's water polo team. Under coaches Chris Oeding and Dave Kasa, the LBCC women will be making their 10th consecutive trip to the tourney.

On Friday (Nov. 19) the Vikings face host American River College in the semifinals of the California Community College Athletic Association (CCCAA) Water Polo State Championships at ARC in Sacramento.

LBCC looks to capture its fourth state title overall and first since 2006.

Long Beach (27-5 overall), the South's No. 2 seed, faces the North's top seed American River (19-5) in Friday's 10 a.m. semifinal game. South No. 1 Riverside plays North No. 2 Foothill at 2 p.m. in the other semifinal. The winners advance to the state championship final on Saturday at 1 p.m. The losers will play in the third-place game on Saturday at 9 a.m.

Long Beach and American River faced each other just three weeks ago. The Vikings came out on top of a 15-11 shootout at home. LBCC is 0-4 this season against Riverside and did not play Foothill this season.

Long Beach earned its trip to the state championships thanks to a second-place finish at the Southern California Championships last week at Cuesta College.

No. 2-seed LBCC opened play Friday with a 10-6 win over No. 7 Fullerton. Then on Saturday, the Vikings beat No. 6-seed Orange Coast 10-8.

Long Beach survived a late scare by the Pirates to secure a trip to the SoCal final. LBCC was up 8-3 midway through the third quarter before Orange Coast rallied for five unanswered goals. LBCC held a narrow 8-7 lead before OCC tied it in the fourth. But Lauren Sweet's goal with 4:03 left put the Vikings up for good before Sarah Agopian iced it with her late goal. Christine Meier led LBCC with three goals.

Saturday's semifinal victory over Orange Coast was a milestone for Oeding as it gave him his 300th career women's win at LBCC.

In the SoCal final, Long Beach still had no answer for No. 1 Riverside as the Tigers edged the Vikings 8-5 to stay undefeated. The game was tied 3-3 after the first half before Riverside got a goal with eight seconds left in the third to go ahead for good at 5-4. RCC posted three goals in the fourth to put the game out of reach.

Melissa Mansana led the Vikings with six goals over three games at the regionals, while goalie Lindsay Smith totaled 16 saves over the tourney.