Vikings can't hold late leads, fall 3-0 to Cerritos

The Long Beach City College women's volleyball team suffered a 3-0 loss to visiting Cerritos College on Friday at LBCC. Cerritos won the tightly contested match by scores of 25-23, 26-24, and 25-19.

Long Beach (7-10, 4-5 SCC) held sizable leads in all three sets, but the Falcons (8-9, 4-4 SCC) rallied to overcome the Vikings and steal the win.

In Set 1, LBCC was up 21-18 and appeared to be on its way to an early win. But Cerritos took advantage of a pair of Viking errors and tied the score at 23. An ace by Madison Guastella and a kill from setter Gloria Chang gave the Falcons the victory.

In Set 2,  Long Beach stormed out to a 7-1 lead and once again led late 23-21. The Vikings had set point at 24-23, but a serving error and a pair of LBCC hitting errors gave Cerritos the 26-24 win.

The Vikings opened Set 3 with an 8-4 lead before the Falcons caught them at 8-8. Cerritos was up 20-15 before the Vikings made one final push. Two kills by freshman Lani Samoa, an ace from Scarlet Taeleifi, and a Cerritos hitting error got the Vikings back within one point at 20-19. But Long Beach would get no closer as the Falcons scored the next five points, thanks to three LBCC errors, to close out the match.

Freshman outside hitter Doreen Iosua (pictured) led the Vikings with 14 kills. She also added seven digs. Samoa had 10 kills and seven digs, while Taeleifi chipped in with a team-high 11 digs to go with five kills. Sophomore Kelsey Dix totaled 37 assists.

For Cerritos, Lupe Garcia totaled nine kills and 15 digs. Madison Guastella led all with 16 digs, and Gloria Chang posted 14 assists and four digs.

Long Beach returns to action on Wednesday (Nov 2) when it travels to face El Camino College in a 6 pm SCC match.

Photo: Freshman outside hitter Doreen Iosua goes for a kill (Photo by Carlos Verdugo)