By
Tony Lee
On
Friday, September 11, 2009
Sophomores Rebecca Murray (left) and Melissa Mahi (right) were chosen as co-team captains by the coaching staff earlier this week.
“I think they’re well respected by all their teammates and, to my knowledge, there’s not anybody that dislikes them on the team. They both are in good standing academically - which also came into consideration,” head coach Mike Thornton said.
The lady Pirates will play its first game on Dec. 11 against Mt. San Jancito at 7 p.m. and will return home on Jan. 6 to play its first home OEC game against RCC at 7:30 p.m. 
Who is your celebrity crush and why?Murray: David Beckham because of his beautiful body and his tattoos.If you could have dinner with anyone dead or alive, who would it be and why?Mahi: I would say Ellen DeGeneres because she is hilarious – or Michael Jackson.Last time you cried during a movie and why?Murray: I have a last time I cried during a show. It was “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.” I cry every time. What’s in your gym bag that’s weird or you don’t want people to know about?Mahi: I have my bathing suit just in case I don’t have class and I get to go to the beach.Do you think you deserve more playing time?Murray: No, because we haven’t got into the season yet, but it just depends on how you play individually in practice because how I practice is how I play in the game.What’s the weirdest thing in your room and why do you still have it?Mahi: I have a big portrait of myself – like a big poster. It was from high school, like those banners they put up on the gym wall. It’s really weird because people come into my room and like, “Are you conceited?”
What is your biggest pet peeve and why?Murray: People interrupting when I’m talking because it just cuts the flow off.LeBron or Kobe and why?Mahi: Oh man, that’s so easy. It’s LeBron – King James!Murray: Why? Please tell me.Mahi: I’m not a Kobe lover and LeBron is just a beast. LeBron James can just knock him down. Any day, LeBron James.Me: Then tell your Kobe argument?Murray: Kobe is just amazing. There’s no questions about it.Mahi: Overrated.Murray: No he’s not! MVP. What about that? MVP.Questions you want answered by athletes can be submitted to coastreportsports@gmail.com and I would add it in the hat.[Photos courtesy of Hank Schellingerhout]
By
Tony Lee
On
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
The lady Pirates are off to a good start by defeating Glendale College 25-5, 25-18 and 25-13 in its home and season opener today (Sept. 9) at the Peterson Gym.
Sophomore Briana Fields led the team with 12 kills and sophomore Poerava Gantt added 10 for the lady Pirates. Freshman setter Kimya Jafroudi had 24 assists and sophomore Nikki Osuna had 15 digs in the contest.
"Our energy was going good," Fields said. "We had some let downs in the second and third games but like the fact that our energy stayed up was good." In that second game, Coast trailed 2-1 and it was the only time the lady Pirates trailed in the day."Once you beat a team by 20, you kind of are just like, 'Eh' but we shouldn't have thought like that but they came back with some fire.After the lady Pirates tied it up at 7-7, Fields had one of her 12 kills to go up a point on Glendale and win the first match of the season."Nikki, our libero, played really well. So did Amanda (Cheseborough) and then the middles Kristin (Rice) and Alex (Mainini) did an awesome job today," Fields said.Coast (1-0) plays Friday (Sept. 11) at San Diego Mesa College and will return home Sept. 18 against Citrus College. Both games start at 6 p.m.Here are the live Twitter updates from the game. Follow OCC Sports Blog's twitter page (@OccSports).- Lady Pirates win in 3 sets - third being 25-13. Interviews and pics coming soon on the sports blog.
- Third set: Coast 15, Glendale 10 - only 10 more points for win.
- Set 2 was a lot closer but Coast still won 25-18. One more set for the lady Pirates' home and season opener.
- Second set: Coast 14, Glendale 9.
- Nikki Osuna just made a dig with her head! Coast wins 25-5 in the first set.
- Lady Pirates got the first 8 points to take an early 9-1 lead against Glendale.
- Starting lineups were announced and the Lady Pirates' first home game is all set to start!
- Women's volleyball plays its first home game today at 6 p.m. The game will be covered live via twitter. Hope to see everyone @ Peterson Gym.
By
Tony Lee
On
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
The lady Pirates are off to a good start by defeating Glendale College 25-5, 25-18 and 25-13 in its home and season opener today (Sept. 9) at the Peterson Gym.
Chuck Cutenese is the head women's volleyball coach at OCC and is in his 18th season.
Which team are you guys? The one that won by 20, 7 or 12?I think one of our strengths is that there are a lot of sophomores and they're really familiar. We're going surprise a lot of teams and that's what we did in the first game. But they were a little bit nervous, they settled down, we got a little complacent and the third game we picked it up; so right now, we're all three of those teams. Our goal is to be that first team - real focused and well disciplined.Name one thing you guys did good and one thing you guys did bad.I thought we served really well and I thought we need to tip and roll-shot better. It looks like you designed a lot of plays for Briana Fields. Is that a fair indication of how the season will go?Well it's not just Bri, but Bri's very explosive and jumps fast and quick. She's someone we gave the ball to a lot last year so no surprise we're doing that. We are much more evenly divided this year than last year. The rule of thumb is to set whoever has the hot hand. (Fields) was putting the ball away early so we kept giving her the ball.You've said the net work needs work for the team but it looks like the team played well in that aspect today.(Glendale) was setting up (No.) 2 and 11 a lot so it gave us more time to just key in on that. We weren't really challenged in that respect but we got some things at the net we need to work on.
By
Tony Lee
On
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
Yours truly will be at the first women's volleyball home game Wednesday (Sept. 9) at 6 p.m. and reporting it live on twitter.com/OccSports.Tweets will include set scores and game commentaries and the OCC Sports Blog will have a Q & A session with the player of the game and head coach Chuck Cutenese.Good luck lady Pirates.
By
Tony Lee
On
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
The top story for the Coast Report's Sept. 9 issue is "Coast axes intersession offers" and talks about Orange Coast College cutting intersession to allocate funds elsewhere.
This will affect OCC's women's basketball program more than other Coast sports since basketball is the only one that plays both fall and spring.
"Usually half our team takes intersession classes so the kids that are sophomores, they expected to have an opportunity to pick up a transferable class in the intersession, but that's not there," head coach Mike Thornton said.But even for the fall semester, many sophomores might have to go to OCC one more year because they have trouble getting into classes required for transfering."There are a couple classes...one's a chemistry class, I think, and there are only one or two of those classes offered," Thornton said. "Even though they had an early registration appointment, they didn't get in."Thornton added the team relied on donations for their Rebounder's Club and advertisements for team media guides. The school printed out a couple hundred guides and any excess copies were to come out of the donations and advertisements. But that's not the case this year."The only way (budget cuts) have affected it is we have to pay for all the printing," Thornton said. The budget cuts have hurt the lady Pirates on the court too."We had to cut back four games from our schedule, from 28 games to 24 games," he said.Thornton's team will play in five tournaments this year to try to make up the lost games. If the lady Pirates play in the maximum amount of games possible at the tournaments, they will play more than 28 games. Budget cuts have affected other Coast teams similarly also and this is just one exampleDuring the summer, Coast's Communications Director Jeff Hobbs said “I don’t think the programs themselves are going to see any drastic cuts as of now, but that could change."Well, at least they didn't axe one of the 21 sports program instead, but if how the women's basketball team is affected is a foreshadowing of things to come, I have a feeling I might be reporting a bigger story sooner than later.
[Photo courtesy of CartoonStock.com]
Who is your celebrity crush and why?
