Irvine Valley's women's beach volleyball team had a fun couple of days at the Orange Empire Conference Pairs Championships this week at IVC.
The tournament took place Wednesday and Friday and qualified pairs teams to move on to the Southern California Pairs Regional event, which will be held next Friday at Irvine Valley.
IVC had an impressive four pairs move on, including producing the top two duos in the conference.
The teams of sophomore Renata Bath and freshman Lea Kruse and sophomores Alyssa Vortouni and Emilie Austin were named co-champions.
The two teams didn't compete in the final with team regionals coming up next Tuesday and then individual regionals on the schedule for next Friday.
Bath and Kruse defeated the Riverside duo of Vashti Elias-Romero and Natalie Escher, 21-14, 21-13, in one semifinal and Vortouni and Austin upset the Cypress duo of Khamis Berneker and Brittany Zavala, 21-13, 21-13, in the other semifinal.
Elias-Romero and Escher won a marathon third-place match over Berneker and Zavala, 21-15, 10-21, 18-16, to place third.
Also moving on for the Lasers to the So. Cal. pairs regional were the duos of sophomore freshmen Anna Unke and Gabriela Griego and freshmen Alaina Gendale and Kendall Nolan.
Unke and Griego finished fifth in the event and Gendale and Nolan took ninth for the Lasers.
Orange Coast had two pairs moving on. Those duos were Kasey Mathieson and Bailey Coffin and Camryn Kaina and Rylee Adair. Riverside, Cypress, Santa Ana and Saddleback each had one pair earn an automatic spot in the regionals.
The Lasers will next play in a Southern California Team Regional on Tuesday. The Lasers are expected to get one of the top four seeds and host the event. Those brackets will be announced on Saturday.
A full list of OEC qualifying pairs to regionals is listed below
OEC Pairs Qualifiers for So. Cal. Regionals
Renata Bath/Lea Kruse – Irvine Valley
Alyssa Vortouni/Emilie Austin – Irvine Valley
Vashti Elias-Romero/Natalie Escher – Riverside
Khamis Berneker/Brittany Zavala – Cypress
Anna Unke/Gabriela Griego – Irvine Valley
Karissa Mumford/Erisa Pooee – Santa Ana
Kacey Mathieson/Bailey Coffin – Orange Coast
Camryn Kaina/Rylee Adair – Orange Coast
Alaina Gendale/Kendall Nolan – Irvine Valley
Ayla Fresenius/Nickie Hughes – Saddleback
Alternates
Kayla Owens/Alisha Ormond – Cypress (first alternate)
Lauren Schaefer/Amanda Henderson – Fullerton (second alternate)
