Long Beach City College women’s beach volleyball shut out Ventura College in a close match that gave the Vikings the 5-0 overall session on Feb. 21 after their close win against Santa Monica College of 3-2 .
The Vikings have kept their winning performance as they are staying at the Liberal Arts Campus for the match against Ventura.
Volleyball director Tyler Jackson was impressed the team had managed to defeat a team that made it to the state finals in the previous season.
“Coming off 5-0 against them was like a motivation boost,” Jackson said. “A lot have never played beach before so I know they needed that win.”
A new-coming participant in the game, Jubilee Allen arrived with no experience yet played well in her first game with a score of 22-20 and 21-19.
“She’s a bit nervous at the start but once we set her loose she had a lot out there,” Jackson said.
“I was determined to play my game, not theirs,” Allen said as she reflected on the game along with her partner Carmelina Infante, whose first win proves the statement against Ventura.
As her first appearance in the sport, her partner Infante helped Allen to work on concentrating on the game as she kept the performance to win the game.
“She helped me a lot,” Allen said. “She’s more focused on helping me and it’s like a learning experience and helped me. I was grateful.”
Along with the newcomer’s winning glory, the fifth game sparked as the Vikings won after a 1-set loss as Ryannah Gagau and Danika Losua kept the game speed against Ventura.
“It feels good to come out with a win,” Losua said. “The first set was rough but we got together as a team as a partner to communicate to each other to forget the mistake and go to the next point.”
“We’ve been making a lot of changes in switching the lineups and giving the girls more opportunity to practice with partners who will stay put,” Jackson said.
The Vikings beach volleyball faced off against Bakersfield and Moorpark on Friday and won against both schools to put their record at 5-2 overall as conference play begins on March 1.