Pirates’ streak stops at 36

HUNTINGTON BEACH — Chuck Cutenese didn’t mind saying his team needed to lose for the first time in 37 matches.

Round two of the 2004 regional playoffs was the last time the Orange Coast College women’s volleyball team had lost until Wednesday night.

OCC’s rival Golden West, ranked No. 15, did the deed with a 30-21, 30-26, 31-29, 30-28 Orange Empire Conference victory over the top-ranked Pirates.

The Rustlers had their streak of 12 consecutive state titles erased when the Pirates took the state title with an undefeated season in 2005.

This year’s Pirates (10-1, 3-1 in conference) needed to lose, Cutenese said. Even at the cost of ending the program’s longest winning streak.

“We needed a wake-up call,” Cutenese said. “This was our wake-up call.”

Ringing the alarm on a regular basis was the hefty middle of Golden West. Freshman middle blocker Janell Putnam stood 6-foot-4, while sophomore opposite hitter Courtney Neils was 6-3. The Rustlers had six players 6-foot or taller and with the Pirates two main hitters Jacqi Reed and Kiwi Winkler standing 6-1 and 5-10 respectively, Orange Coast had its work cut out.

“This is the biggest team in the state,” Cutenese said. “It’s something we haven’t seen all year.”

Reed and Winkler had 26 and 21 kills, respectively and Ashlee Moon had 32 digs.

A chance for revenge and redemption comes at home Nov. 3 against the Rustlers.

“It will be nice that it will be at our place,” Cutenese said. “We’ll focus a lot on ball control.”

It was the OCC offense that broke down on a regular basis, with the magic number being 20.

In both the first and third games, the Pirates held a 20-15 lead only to watch it slip away.

“That’s what my assistant was telling me, ‘We just get to 20 and quit playing,’ ” Cutenese said. “No, our rotation changes when we get to 20. We have the setter in the front row. When we get to that we have less hitters and more balls are going outside and we’re facing double blocks on every player.”

The Pirates held the lead for the majority of the first three games, but emerged, down, 2-1. By the fourth game, the Rustlers had gained confidence and it was the Pirates, who were playing catch-up.

Golden West only made three hitting errors in the fourth game and despite tying or coming within one point 14 times, Orange Coast only held the lead twice, at 1-0, and, 13-12. A 5-0 run from Golden West disintegrated the final lead.

The Pirates trailed, 29-25, in the fourth game when Reed blasted three straight kills, but her fourth attempt to tie the game sailed just wide.

“I have to give a lot of credit to Golden West,” Cutenese said. “People thought they were too big and their passing wasn’t good, but I thought their passing was good. When the pressure was on they lived up to it.”

In the first game, the Pirates led by as many as seven points, but a 20-15 lead went bad as the Rustlers went on a 15-1 run, with six of the points coming from Orange Coast hitting errors.

“They played the big points,” Cutenese said. “It’s frustrating to be leading and simple errors ruin it.”

The third game slipped away in a slightly more crushing manner. The Pirates had only trailed once in the game, 2-1, before the Rustlers took a 28-27 lead. Orange Coast came back courtesy of an error and a kill from Reed to earn a game point and a chance to lead the match, but Golden West reeled off three straight points to take a 2-1 lead in games.

“We looked good in game one then we let it get away,” Cutenese said. “We looked good in game three then we let it get away.”

The blocking was strong for Orange Coast, but passing was key.

“We’ve been working a lot on blocking,” Cutenese said. “But you don’t win with blocking, you win with ball control.”

The Pirates have 10 matches remaining in their conference schedule.

They face No. 23 Riverside Friday at 7 p.m. at home.

“We need to work on our set location,” Cutenese said. “We need to get our middle blocker more involved in the offense. Our strength is our two outside hitters. Having them hit against a two-man block all the time is not what we want.”