Sophomore Lucca Mamone scored the game clinching block in the fifth set to secure the 3-2 win for Long Beach City College men’s volleyball over Moorpark on Friday.
“It feels great. I mean there was a talk between both teams, mainly one side, so we just had to show our game and why we were here and what we do,” Mamone said.
Moorpark kept a chatty mouth against the Vikings during the whole game but the LBCC softball team showed up to help cheer the Vikings on.
“We love as many people that come, we love any one that comes and supports us. Will definitely make sure to be better at going to one of their games,” Mamone said.
The Vikings offense stood out in the first set but seemed to have lacked in the second and third sets.
The defense also seemed to have lacked communication, which resulted in the Vikings giving up multi-point leads.
“Communication is a big part of it but right now the other team played well, we did not play well,” assistant coach Jason Kwak said.
This allowed Moorpark to tie or even take the lead in the game multiple times during the game.
In the fourth the Vikings came together to win the set sending the game to a fifth set where the Vikings capped off the comeback win.
“We could improve on our mindset for sure. It was a little rough at the beginning, we were all playing within our own heads battling all the bad calls from the refs and it was more of a head game, at the end we finally came together and started playing as a team,” Mamone said.
Assistant coach Jason Kwak would temporarily take over as head coach, as head coach Angel Nikolov was not in attendance.
“He’s just in Colorado doing national team stuff,” Kwak said.
Nikolov helps train and search for the top level players looking to get into the national team.
With this win the Viking would start a three game win streak, extend their conference record to 2-0 and their overall record to 3-5 as they are playing another conference game Wednesday against Santa Monica at 6 p.m.