Posted: May 10, 2018

Waters and Leilua Head to CCCAA Pairs State Championships

El Camino College duo Aiko Waters and Phina Leilua will head to the California Community College Beach Volleyball Pairs State Championships this weekend.

The pair enters the competition, which opens Friday morning, as the No. 13 seed from Southern California and No. 25 overall in the 32-team field.

The field consists of 32 teams in eight four-team pools. The winners and runners-up from pool play advance to the round of 16.

Waters and Leilua are placed in Pool 5 as the lowest seeded team. Mikeila Banda and Haley Leifheit of Gavilan College are the top seed in the group as the No. 8 overall seed with Michelle Mason and Claudia Mathews of MiraCosta the No. 9 overall seed. Morgan Wright and Kaylin Henderson of West Valley round out the pool.

Waters and Leilua will be a part of the second wave of pool play which is set to get underway at 12:30 p.m. on Friday. Their first match will be against Mason/Mathews of MiraCosta followed by a contest against Banda/Leifheit at approximately 2:30 p.m. They finish off pool play against Wright/Henderson at approximately 3 p.m.

The Warriors duo will look to repeat last year's success by an ECC tandem after Michelle Shimamoto and Micah Hammond finished second overall at the 2017 CCCAA Beach Volleyball Pairs State Championships despite being the No. 27 seed at the competition.