Long Beach sweep sets up men's volleyball state championship rematch with Orange Coast on Saturday

TORRANCE - For the third straight season, No. 1 Long Beach City College is headed to the California Community College Athletics Association Men's Volleyball State Championships final after defeating No. 4 San Diego Mesa 3-0 (25-16, 25-12, 25-22) on Thursday night at the El Camino College Gym Complex. 

The Vikings (19-1) will now face No. 3 Orange Coast in the 3C2A MVB State Championship match for the second straight year and sixth time since 1987. The Pirates defeated the Vikings last year in four sets and lead the head-to-head battle 3-2 in the finals, winning titles in 1987, 1991 and 2022. The Vikings downed the Pirates in 2012 and 2016 to win the state title.

The two storied programs have combined for 19 state championships between them. The Vikings will be in search of their 11th state championship and first since 2019. They have won seven titles since 2004. The Pirates will be looking to repeat and secure their eighth state title and fourth since 2014.

Matthew Pennala led the Vikings during the regular season in kills and showed why on Thursday night, hammering down 18 kills with just three errors on 33 swings. He attacked at a blistering .455 percentage. 

Teammate Georgi Binev pitched in with a solid effort of his own, hammering down 13 kills on 21 swings with just two errors (.524 pct.). The duo combined for a dominant .481 attack percentage.

As a team, the Vikings swung at a .381 clip with Sean Nguyen dishing out 32 assists. 

With the sweep, the Vikings secured their 18th consecutive win and have now won 48 straight sets. Their last dropped set, ironically, came in the first set of a 3-1 win over Orange Coast on Feb. 15 in Long Beach.

As for the Olympians (18-6), Austin Kinnear led the way with 10 kills on 28 swings and a .321 percentage but no other player tallied more than five kills. As a team the Olympians swung at a .138 clip.

The Vikings entered the semifinals as the hottest team in the state and continued to ride the streak as they dominated the first two sets. They held the Olympians to a .143 attacking percentage in the first set and then clamped down even more by holding them to a .037 clip in the second to win the first two sets by a combined 22 points.

But the Olympians mounted a stand in the third set as the teams traded the lead five times and were knotted up nine times. The Olympians led 15-10 and 17-13 in the third but the Vikings rallied with 5-1 run to tie things up at 18-18. 

The teams traded points but at 20-20, Pennala hammered down consecutive kills, his eighth and ninth of the set, to put the Vikings up 22-20. Binev then added a kill to make it 23-21 and then helped set the block with Nguyen to deny TJ Letuligasenoa to make it 24-21.

A service error by Santiago Mantovani ended the match and sent the Vikings to the final on Saturday with first serve set at 7 p.m.

(Rafael Guerrero, El Camino College Athletics)