The unthinkable happened again—Long Beach State’s Women’s Volleyball team, a national power ranked No. 22 in the nation, has lost their second consecutive game in straight sets.  This time it was on the road against Pacific, in the 49ers’ league opener.  Pacific’s Alexa Anderson finished with 17 kills as Long Beach State fell 22-25, 17-25, 23-25. Junior middle blocker Brittney Herzog finished with seven kills on .600 hitting, Long Beach State’s most effective hitter on the evening.

Pacific’s offense outperformed Long Beach State’s throughout the match, hitting .327, outpacing a solid outing from the 49ers at .222. The Tigers’ top two targets led the way, as Anderson had 17 kills on .368 hitting, while transfer Mallori Gibson added 13 kills with a .409 average.  That along with 49er miscues allowed Pacific to take control in all three sets and hold on to get the victory. The 49ers had seven service errors, and also made 17 attack errors, while hitting into only six blocks on the evening.

Long Beach State took an early lead in set one, winning six of the first seven points, but Pacific would come back to tie the set at seven before taking the lead at 8-7. Riding the momentum from the early comeback, the Tigers would hold on to the lead until the 49ers were able to again tie the set at 19-19. Long Beach State was unable to come back into the lead, and two consecutive blocks from the Tigers finished out the opener 25-22 in favor of Pacific.

Set two featured the best of the attack for Pacific, as the Tigers just made two errors in a convincing 25-17 win as the 49ers never had the lead. Pacific hit .469 in the set, making 17 kills as Pacific stopped the 49ers from maintaining any kind of rhythm in the set.

After the break, the 49ers remained more competitive in set three, but were again dropped by Pacific.  Trailing by as many as five points late in the set, Long Beach State mounted a rally behind a kill from Ya Chen Wang and a service ace by Ashley Lee, finally tying the third set at 23-23 after a Caitlin Ledoux kill. However, Pacific took the next two points to escape with the 25-23 win.

Long Beach State was led on the evening by Caitlin Ledoux, who had eight kills but also had six errors, and by Herzog, who had a nice evening with seven kills on 10 swings with just one error. The 49ers fall to 10-3 while Pacific gets their second win of the year.

The 49ers’ road continues Saturday, as Long Beach State heads to UC Davis in the second half of the two-game trip. Hopefully Coach Gimmillar and his team will have figured out exactly what the heck is going on—we sure don’t have a clue.

From reports by LBSU’s Roger Kirk