Two West Valley beach volleyball pairs received the prestigious American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) Top Flight Award, Viking coach Armen Zakarian recently announced. West Valley's Kiana Manson and Flor Porras, and Devin Derecho and Sydney Rogers were two of five California community college pairs - Ventura College tandems were the others - to receive the 2023 honor.

The Top Flight program, in its fifth year, recognizes beach pairs who compete in at least 15 matches together at a specific flight and win at least 75% of their matches. This year, 54 pairs representing 32 schools—from all three NCAA divisions, NAIA and Two Year Colleges—are Top Flight.

Manson and Porras were Flight One winners, going 13-4 as WVC's 1's. Viking 2's Derecho and Rogers finished 14-3 and were Flight Two winners. Both pairs were qualifiers in last week's CCCAA State Beach Volleyball State Championships at the West Valley Beach Volleyball Complex. Manson and Porras finished fifth. Both pairs were All-Coast Conference 1st Team slections.

Porras will play beach at CSU-Northridge as a scholarship athlete in the fall, while Rogers accepted an academic and beach scholarship to the University of Saint Katherine in San Marcos.

Read the full AVCA release.