By Brandon Petersen
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Saturday morning at the Elite Athlete Training Center in Chula Vista, the Westcliff women's beach volleyball team was once again crowned the best of the best after beating NAIA No. 1 Corban of Oregon, 3-2.
With the additions of Corban, Bushnell and Southern Oregon to the tournament, what was once the California Pacific Conference championships has now become the NAIA West Region National Qualifier.
With the win, No. 2 Westcliff automatically punched its ticket the NAIA Women's Beach National Championships April 20-22 in Panama City Beach in Florida.
After the votes come out of the next NAIA coaches' poll, the Warriors should be the No. 1 team in the country heading into the championships.
"We're pretty stoked — I could pass out from the adrenaline right now," Maddie Shepston said. "We worked really hard for this. We were a little nervous going into it, but we went out there and took care of business — so we feel good."
Shepston is one of Westcliff's returning members of last year's championship team, and she knows first-hand what the Warriors went through this past year, starting with the departure of former head coach Kenny Ma.
It wasn't always easy, but with the addition of head coach Tim Maruyama, the Warriors found their way and became even more formidable in the process.
While last year's championship win was a hard-fought team victory that needed every last point, this year's championship was led heavily by the Warriors at the top of the rotation, and although the final score was 3-2, as Gianna Guinasso explained afterward, it felt more like a 5-0 sweep.
No. 4 Luise Palenczat and Serena Comer went three games before falling 15-9 in the decisive set.
No. 5 Brooke Scheidle and Leanna Zamora also went the distance before eventually falling to Corban in three.
But Westcliff's No. 1, Marine Kinna and Fiona Moesching, dominated its match with Megan Dennis and Avery Ridgeway (21-12, 21-16), as did Shepston and Sabrina Galassi at No. 3 (21-16, 21-15 over Maya Blake and Kealani Ontai).
At No. 2, Guinasso and Mia Scheepens — who was awarded the game ball afterward following an epic finals performance — fell 19-21 in the first set to sisters Cameron and Kianna Keeling.
The Warriors took a breezy second set, 21-14, but faced match point in the third set before flipping the script and claiming an all-important — and absolutely thrilling — 18-16 comeback win.
"First set, our mistakes," Guinasso said. "Second set, we spanked them — so we knew it was our mistakes. Third set, there was a little bit of tension. It was 14-12 — that timeout, Mia turns to me an says, 'I love this position.' And I was like, 'She's on.'
"She goes, 'We've never lost a third set — let's do this.' So, it was comfortable knowing that she had my back, and we were going to battle like it was a brand new game, even though we were down. I felt no nerves, and that was awesome."
Like a pair of veteran quarterbacks, both facing a deficit with under a minute remaining, Guinasso and Scheepens simply took over and enforced their will in the closing moments.
"It was an awesome win for us," Guinasso said. "I'm proud of us, to keep grinding and make that uncomfortable scenario very comfortable."
After winning last year's tournament, Shepston was awarded her championship ring this year at Westcliff's fall sports rally.
The moment is notable because of the look on Shepston's face when the rings were revealed — her jaw dropped and her lips slowly upturned into a huge ear-to-ear grin.
Now, Shepston will have bling for both ring fingers.
"We had a tough start to the season, losing our coach — we were in shambles for a little bit," Shepston said. "But our returners did a good job of gelling us together and from there — every practice — we've improved so much.
"If you would have seen us at the beginning, you would have thought we were a rag-tag team, but now, we're out here ballin'.
"Our whole roster has so much talent. We're happy to be able to come out here and compete in the first place — we're so grateful. We've been trying to take in every moment, and it really showed."
Shepston and Galassi, the latter of whom absolutely dominated the net Saturday, finished their match shortly before Kinna and Moesching put it away.
The Warriors stormed the court following Moesching's game-winning block stuff, surrounding their brilliant No. 1 duo in joyous dance.
The party was on.
"I feel great, it was an amazing game," Kinna said. "We had a lot of fun out there. Everybody felt that little butterfly going into the game, but we embraced it.
"We punched first, and we were the better team today."
There is absolutely no doubt that the Warriors will once again see the previously undefeated Warriors of Corban in Florida.
All season long, both Westcliff and Corban had been on a collision course to Saturday's contest.
Now Corban, who stood atop the NAIA rankings all season, will be headed back to Florida with an at-large bid.
The exact same scenario took place a year ago.
This year, Westcliff heads to Florida knowing how hard it will be to take down Corban again.
The situation is all too familiar.
But the Warriors have a few things going for them this year that they didn't have last year.
Namely — Kinna, Moesching, Scheepens and Galassi.
Alongside Guinasso and Shepston, Westcliff's Top 3 pairs were ridiculously impressive Saturday in Chula Vista.
And the cherry on top — the Warriors' No. 4 and No. 5 tandems proved they can win in Florida as well.
"I love these girls so much," Shepston said. "It's like a bunch of my sisters, so it was awesome we were able to win together."
