The Pirate beach volleyball team traveled to Moorpark Friday to compete on Day 1 of the Western State Conference Pairs Championships. Five pairs represented VC with eight invitations to the 3C2A Southern California Regional Championships on the line. Ventura's top two duos of Shai Daniels and Viola Barrios, and Talia Behrens and Sadie Lishman survived the day to compete on Day 2 of the championships Saturday.
The Pirates entered the event with two pairs ranked in the Top-8, each with the inside track to Saturday's rounds. Daniels and Barrios, who represented VC at the No. 1 spot all season, came in as the No. 3 seed while Behrens and Lishman, Ventura's No. 2 pair, earned the No. 6 seed. They each earned a bye and only needed to win one match to qualify for Regionals. The remaining three Pirate teams were left to battle it out and would eventually have to knock out some top-seeded teams to make it to Day 2.
After winning their play-in match against Moorpark's No. 5 team, 21-17, 21-17, Olivia Brown and Daphne Raymond met Cuesta's No. 1 team in the first round. Cuesta had no answers for Raymond and Brown's powerful offense, and the Pirates upset the Cougars in a hard-hitting 3rd set tiebreaker, 21-16, 14-21, 15-9. They followed that with a close match against Santa Barbara's No. 3 pair for a spot in the SoCal Regionals. Ultimately, Brown and Raymond could not execute the same lights out offense they had in their prior match up, falling in the Round of 16, 21-12, 21-16.
Meanwhile, Skylar Rutherford and Lexi Brinkman fell in their opening match of the day, 22-20, 21-17, against a pair from Bakersfield.
Addison Olson and Giannamay Tayco won their first round match against a Moorpark team, 21-11, 21-19 then played SBCC's No. 2 pair, the highest seeded Vaquero duo at No. 4. The teams were well-matched and played some extensive rallies with unbelievable saves. The match up was exciting and exhausting, and both sets were tied late in the game coming down to the wire. The Pirates ultimately lost by two points in each set, 21-19, 22-20.
In the final matches of the day, Daniels, Barrios, Lishman, and Behrens each won in straight sets to maintain their seed and move on to Day 2. Play in the quarterfinal round will begin at 10:00 am Saturday April 26 at Moorpark. Each of the final eight teams, all of whom have qualified for the SoCal Regionals, will play three matches to determine final seeds heading to regional play.