The562’s coverage of Millikan Athletics for the 2025-26 school year is sponsored by Brian Ramsey and TLD Law.
The562’s coverage of Long Beach Wilson Athletics is sponsored by Joel Bitonio, Class of 2009.
It’s been a long time since the Millikan boys’ volleyball team defeated Wilson – six years and one week to be exact.
Over those six years, the Bruins had won 13 consecutive matches including two five-set thrillers a year ago. However, in front of their home crowd the Rams defeated Wilson in dominant fashion, sweeping the Bruins 25-15, 25-25, 25-19 on Thursday.
The victory extended Millikan’s win streak to 11 matches and was another solid accomplishment for the team after winning the Bellflower/Gahr Tournament last weekend.
“We were firing well and confidently,” Millikan coach Matt Johnson said. “We’ve got a pretty good streak going, so I’m excited about the way that we’ve developed and I’m excited about where it’s going to take us.”
The teams played close in the first set and after a kill by Kobe Magdael tied things up a 9-9, Millikan (18-1, 4-0 Moore League) went on a 16-6 win to close out the match.
Orbiso got all of his hitters involved as Dominic Tirado, Magdael, Jacob Karkanen and Evan Crucil Chamber had kills.
“I kind of just think about how I can be most deceptive,” Orbiso said how getting all his guys involved. “What’s going to be the hardest for the defense. Obviously, I want to make the set that gets the highlight play.”
Orbiso did continued to connect with his hitters second set as Millikan once again pulled away after Wilson tied things up 7-7 after an ace from Tobin Hackney. The Rams then went on a 18-8 run to take a commanding 2-0 lead over Wilson.
“We’ve worked on that,” Johnson said of Orbiso’s misdirection when setting. “Worked on the deception that he does, worked on making sure that he’s delivering the ball to the right spot when everybody believes he’s going somewhere else. I think that’s been a key to what he does really well. He’s got a great connection.”
For the Rams, Karkanen had a team-high eight kills, but Magdael and Chambers had more than five kills.
In the third set, Wilson (7-8, 3-1 Moore League) started to get into the rhythm they wanted to play after trailing 8-3. The Bruins cut the lead to 10-9 later in the set as Hackney and company tried to get a set back.
However, Millikan responded each time and went on a 5-0 run to finish the match with the sweep.
“Being such a young team that we are, we find ourselves in these struggle moments where we start very, very late,” Wilson coach Shawn Goodner said of the team’s slow start. It’s not the ideal situation we want to be in. I think Millikan did a great job, and this was a different level of volleyball than what we’ve seen toward the bottom end of our schedule. It was good for us to match up against this now.”
Millikan is back in action on Thursday when they host Cabrillo, while Wilson travels to take on Long Beach Poly.
