Golden West Reaches State Volleyball Final

It took Golden West awhile to get a handle on Long Beach’s offense Friday night--five games, to be exact.

But by the time that fifth game came around in the semifinals of the community college men’s volleyball state tournament, the Rustlers had it down well enough to secure a 15-11, 5-15, 15-9, 8-15, 17-15 victory at Irvine Valley College.

The Rustlers (14-4) won the last three points in the fifth game and will try for their sixth straight state championship tonight against Los Angeles Pierce, which defeated Grossmont in Friday’s other semifinal. Golden West defeated the Brahmas in five games in last year’s title match.

An undersized Long Beach team had Golden West looking dizzy at times, thanks to a high-paced offense triggered by quick outside hitters who often changed speeds on their kill attempts.

“They were scrappy,” said Rustler setter Travis Nelson. “You think you’re just going to hammer the ball and then some little man jumps up from out of nowhere.”

After Long Beach (13-4) ran away with the fourth game, Golden West got its block going consistently for the first time. After a Long Beach hitting error tied the fifth game at 15-15, Travis Nelson and Mike Deal teamed to block the final two points to clinch the victory.

“It just started clicking for us, we started reading their tricks,” Deal said.

Anthony Medel led the Rustlers with 33 kills. Marshall Roberts had 20; Deal had 13 and seven blocks.

“The last game Deal totally took control,” Golden West Coach Mike D’Alesandro said. “He’s the only reason we won that game.”

Long Beach played an almost perfect second game, thanks to solid serving and unpredictable dumps and taps on the attack. Golden West slowly adjusted, though, to claw back in the third game, before stalling in the fourth.

Alex Cervantes had 23 kills for Long Beach.