Venice sweeps its way past Taft for girls' beach volleyball title
Having finished atop a field of 73 duos to win the City Section pairs title three days earlier, Samantha Lortie and Savannah Rozell were seeking an even bigger prize Friday afternoon in Santa Monica.
The Gondoliers' No. 1 tandem swept its four matches to punctuate a perfect season and lead Venice to its first girls' beach volleyball team championship, one that was capped by a 3-0 shutout of Taft in the finals.
Lortie and Rozell are also outside hitters on Venice's indoor squad, which fell in a five-set thriller to Taft in the City Open Division title match last fall, though both admit they like the beach game more.
'We had a drive to win pairs since we were runner-up last year, but winning this is equal because we love our teammates and we get to share this one with them,' said Rozell, a senior who started playing recreationally on the beach in 10th grade and did not take up indoor volleyball until her junior year.
'We only lost twice all last year, once in league to Palisades and in the pairs finals [to El Camino Real sisters Audrey and Addison Choi],' added Lortie, a junior who has played indoor since she was 10 and beach since she was 13.
Lortie and Rozell beat another El Camino Real duo, Aja Najar and Mackenzie Hazelton, by a score of 28-20 in the pairs final Tuesday after escaping Taft's Eva Velarde and Laila Braimah, 28-24, in the semifinal round. On Friday, they found themselves facing Velarde and Braimah again with the team crown on the line and prevailed, 21-18, 21-10. Lortie and Rozell did not drop a set all season.
'This is only our second year having a school beach team,' Lortie said. 'We'd thought about playing together and when we tried out our coach [Charlie Styrbicki] agreed we'd be a good fit.'
Lortie clinched her team's championship with a spike on match point moments after Venice's No. 2 tandem of Catherine Campbell and Adelaide Groff completed their 21-10, 21-18 victory over Taft's Francine Baltazar-Shine and Ionna Relorcasa one court over. Venice's Kailyn Appling and Natalie Boothby beat Taft's Jasmine Orellana and Nikita Luniv, 21-15, 21-14, at the No. 3 position.
'For the first set we were adjusting to the wind,' Rozell said. 'I kept getting aced on one side and depending on which end we served from we had to either put more on the ball or take a little off it.'
'By the second set we'd figured out what to do,' Lortie added.
Venice and Taft had split two regular-season meetings, both by 2-1 scores, so the Gondoliers' No. 1 pair felt the pressure to set the tone for their team with the City title at stake.
'Savannah has insane hustle and her ball placement is incredible,' Lortie said of her partner. 'Whenever I think the ball's going down, she somehow always gets it.'
'Samantha's consistent, she's always positive and she has a great swing,' Rozell reciprocated. 'We complement each other well, we have good communication and we get along off the court too.'
Venice, seeded first in the 16-team bracket, eliminated No. 16 Simon Tech, No. 8 Grant and No. 5 Birmingham on its way to the final while the third-seeded Toreadors beat No. 14 Westchester, No. 6 El Camino Real and No. 2 Chatsworth.
Braimah's block on championship point lifted Taft to the title over Venice in November and she and Velarde keyed Taft's 2-1 semifinal upset on the sand Friday by besting the Chancellors' top tandem of Samantha Sikorski and Laila Velu, 21-10, 21-14. Chatsworth had beaten Taft twice during the season.
'Third time's the charm,' Toreadors coach Rene Lopez said.
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