Costa Mesa girls’ beach volleyball wins Empire League title
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Costa Mesa has gone coastal, that is to say the Mustangs have felt quite at home in the sand while chasing a bit of history on the beach volleyball courts this spring.
The mission was completed on Wednesday afternoon, when Costa Mesa swept Calvary Chapel in the regular season finale to finish atop the Empire League.
Costa Mesa (12-5, 10-2 in the Empire League) captured its first league championship in girls’ beach volleyball, four years after the formation of the program. Up next, the Mustangs will take aim at another first, as the program seeks its first playoff victory.
The CIF Southern Section released its girls’ beach volleyball pairings on Thursday. Costa Mesa will play host to Ventura St. Bonaventure on Tuesday in the first round of the Division 3 bracket.
“It’s really exciting,” said Aubrey Spallone, part of a top pairing with Isabel Ortega-Davidson that went undefeated in league. “I was here as a freshman. It’s the first time that they started beach volleyball at our school, so I’ve been around since the very start, so it meant a lot.
“It was my senior year, too. That we won that league championship and to have that as our first-ever league championship in beach volleyball, it was really special. It was something that we were all really pulling for this game, knowing that if we won today as a team, that we’d be able to have that title.”
Spallone was an outside hitter for the Mustangs’ indoor girls’ volleyball team, which advanced to the Division 6 quarterfinals in the fall. The indoor program won its one and only league championship in the Golden West League in 2002.
Costa Mesa coach Jacob Lee had tears of joy streaming down his face when the league championship was clinched, largely hidden behind his sunglasses. He reflected on the road toward building a program, looking back on working with former head coach Jillian Rifkin as part of her staff.
“It started with Jillian four years ago,” Lee said. “We started this beach program four years ago because we were just trying to figure out how to make our indoor program better, and we faced a lot of teams the last three years that were just better than us, as we were trying to figure out how it is.
“I’ve been a part of this journey for four years, and I’ve always had a feeling that if we could win league in beach that we could become a much better program down the line. It takes time to get to this situation.”
Ortega-Davidson and Spallone pulled out a three-setter, 21-19, 12-21, 15-10, over Lola Budd and Emily Wolf of Calvary Chapel.
Two other courts went to a decisive third set. Lilah Yagerlener and Kendall Curran earned a 21-15, 7-21, 15-12 win on the fifth court.
In a match that clinched the league title, Andrea Restrepo and Bella Nguyen rallied for a 21-18, 11-21, 15-13 victory over Rhema Whitford and Ava Zisakis. The Mustangs’ pairing trailed 13-9 in the third set.
“We were making plays that if they weren’t in our favor, it would have been tragic, but we kept on playing,” Restrepo said. “We played through stress, anxiety, we gave parents anxiety and we won because we really wanted to win it.”
Costa Mesa edged rival Estancia 3-2 on Monday to set up its chance to win the outright league championship. Calvary Chapel (8-4 overall and in league) had an opportunity to share the league title with a win.
“They have to problem solve,” Lee said. “The fact that they could figure out how to come back from being [down] 9-13 says a lot of their character.”
Nguyen said encouragement between teammates keyed the comeback, while Restrepo spoke to the value of playing in the sand. The tandem form a defense-first pairing made up of two liberos.
“I think that beach volleyball and being in the sand, moving in the sand really helps your indoor game because the sand is so hard to move in,” Restrepo said. “You’ve got other factors such as wind and rain. It makes your indoor game so much better because it’s so much easier.”
On a cloudy afternoon, the sides attempted to make plays in a coastal breeze of 10-to-15 miles per hour south of the pier at Huntington State Beach.
The Costa Mesa duos of Gracie Glass and Anusuya Guragain, as well as Brooke Mehanna and Lucca Miller, each won their matches in straight sets.
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