Reports From CCCAA
Outside hitter Brad Hemmerling posted an impressive match-high 29 kills to lead the Orange Coast College Pirates to a 3-1 upset win over defending state champion Long Beach City College in Semifinal No. 2 of the 2010 California Community College Athletic Association (CCCAA) Men’s Volleyball State Championship on Thursday night at Orange Coast’s Peterson Gymnasium in Costa Mesa.
Orange Coast won the match by scores of 30-26, 30-25, 28-30, and 30-27 to advance to Saturday’s state championship final at 7 p.m. against Western State Conference runner up Moorpark College.
“It was an unbelievable match — one of the best I’ve ever been a part of,” OCC head coach Travis Turner. “Long Beach is a very big and physical team, but I think we ‘out-volleyballed’ them when we needed to. We executed our offense, came up with big digs on defense and passed the ball well when it counted most.”
Orange Coast, the No. 2 seed out of the Pacific Coast Conference, was able to play tough defense and took advantage of numerous LBCC serving and hitting errors to cruise to wins in the opening two sets.
OCC jumped out to a 10-5 advantage in set three and looked to sweep the Vikings for the second time this season. But Long Beach put together an 11-5 run before a kill by Chris Austin gave the Vikings’ their first lead in any set of the match at 16-15.
Orange Coast didn’t quit and eventually found itself just two points from the win. Facing elimination at 28-26, LBCC’s Randy Preval hammered down a pair of kills, then teamed with Rob McLean for a block on Hemmerling’s shot, before the Vikings closed set three with an ace from Sean Hardy to keep hope alive with a win and force a fourth set.
Momentum appeared to be on Long Beach’s side. Kris Johnson’s ace put the Vikings up 8-3 before Turner called a well-placed time out.
The time out worked and OCC rolled to an 8-3 run of its own, sparked by four kills from Hammerling to tie it 12-12. The set was tied eight more times before Orange Coast finally took over. With the score evened at 21, two attack errors by Johnson, and kills from OCC’s Troy Tomasello and Harrison Carroll gave the Pirates the lead for the final time.
Hemmerling posted three kills down the stretch — he had 10 of his 29 kills in set four. He also added nine digs and two blocks to his impressive night and closed with a .389 hitting percentage.
Paul Leon totaled 60 assists, and Harrison Phelps led OCC with 13 digs. Tomasello also had a good night, chipping in with 18 kills and 11 digs.
Long Beach, the Western State Conference champion, closes its season with a 16-2 overall record. LBCC’s three loses from the past two seasons have come at the hands of Orange Coast.
Parker Del Re led Long Beach with 16 kills. Preval had a big night in the loss, posting 15 kills, five blocks, and finished with a .560 hitting percentage. Johnson had 13 kills and five blocks, while Austin led the Vikings with 37 assists. Troy Crutchfield closed his LBCC career with 19 digs.
Orange Coast is 18-2 overall heading into the state final against Moorpark. The Pirates will be making their 13th trip to the championship match and they will be going for their sixth state men’s volleyball title in school history (1987, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1994).
The Raiders will look to avenge its loss to Orange Coast from early this season. On February 12, Orange Coast beat Moorpark 3-2 (23-30, 30-23, 30-21, 25-30, 15-10).
Moorpark returns to the final match for the first time since its 2005 state championship season.