The VC beach volleyball team ended the most successful season in school history Saturday with Ashley Johnson and Olivia Sletten advancing to the CCCAA State Elite Eight while Kayla Murdoch and Autumn Rojelio Moreno moved all the way to the Final Four before falling at West Valley College.
Johnson and Sletten got the day off to a good start with a solid 21-19, 21-16 victory over the No. 3 pair from Orange Coast.
Murdoch and Rojelio followed with a tough come-from-behind three-set decision over the No. 1 pair from Santa Barbara 18-21, 21-11, 15-8. It was the sixth match-up between the top twosomes from the Pirates and Vaqueros, with the season-series ending in a 3-3 tie with the VC duo winning twice at state, a win in the team match-up Thursday and Saturday's triumph.
Ventura ended as the only program with two pairs in the state's Elite Eight.
In the quarterfinal round, Johnson and Sletten put up a valiant fight, but dropped their match against the top team from Orange Coast, 21-15, 21-16, ending their season.
Meanwhile, Murdoch and Rojelio had a rematch against the top team from Feather River, a duo they had defeated on Thursday in a team match. As they had two days earlier, the Pirates' pair prevailed in a sweep, 21-14, 21-16, to become the first VC duo to advance to the state semifinals.
The Final Four featured another rematch for Murdoch and Rojelio, their third contest against the No. 1 pair from Orange Coast. The Pirate twosome dropped their regular season match on March 3 before winning in the quarterfinal round of the SoCal Regionals a week ago.
The third match up between the two Pirate teams was a difficult fight, but the VC pair fell short. Murdoch and Rojelio dropped the opening set 21-14 before the OCC pair completed the sweep, 21-16, ending a remarkable season for the pair and for the Pirate team.
The two Ventura pairs matched and exceeded Samantha Flores and Amronee Hunter's finish in the Elite Eight for the Pirates in 2017. Meanwhile, two days earlier, the VC team finished as the state runners-up in the Pirates' first-ever trip to the CCCAA State Championships. It was, without question, the most successful season in VC Pirate beach volleyball history.