The Beach basketball teams cleaned out the cellar of the Big West for the second week in a row, sending Riverside to the same wood shed that they sent Fullerton to the week before. The men of Monson won by big margins, twenty over the Titans and forty over the Highlanders. The women of Wynn by two over Fullerton and by fourteen over UCR.
This week features a Wednesday night visit to the Mid by UC Davis and that Bracket Buster intersectional tilt Friday with Stephen F. Austin, a team with a fancy won-loss record and good enough to get the game on TV. So much for the men.
The ladies, stuck in the middle of the Big West race, have finally dialed in their shooting sights with a 50 percent from the field en route to that huge 80-66 Big West road win over UC Riverside Saturday evening. Now a restful week with just one game on tap, behind the orange curtain and that short trip to UC Irvine Thursday night. (LBSU (14-11, 7-6 Big West) had a season-high 51.9 field goal percentage, (9-of-18 from 3-point range.) and a season high 80 points.
Baseball was a more curious result. I was very close to passing a by-law that would say in any game played before February 18th the team leading after two innings is declared the winner. Playing at #2 Vanderbilt that not-real rule would have the Dirtbags sweeping. Alas it is not a rule and despite early leads the Friday and Saturday games eventually went to the home team Commodores. Sunday, ah sweet Sunday, Buck’s boys found their hitting shoes and won 13-9.
Afterward, the Bags sprinted to the Nashville airport and raced home to the washing machines, found their Monday classes and now split this week with the defending national champions from Arizona, (Tuesday and Wednesday) before exhaling and welcoming the cold weather kids from Valpariso Indiana. Valpo, who plays in the Horizon League not to be confused with eh SEC, was also in Nashville for three games, two with Belmont and one with Ohio. They went 1-2 and generally hide from Midwest weather until April hence the Cali trip this week, Florida next, and so on.
In game one the early starting work from Maciel held the fort for a moment, LB lead 1-0 after 2.5 innings, but then got run down. Same on Saturday with a 1-0 leading holding up for 4.5 frames, but the defense and offense faded. On Sunday the start from Landon Hunt looked good, a 9-2 lead for 3.5 innings, then it got crazy again.
As effective as Hunt was (note: we said effective not overpowering) that scariest number in pitcher-dom is five, in that starters must go a full five to get a win. Naturally Mr. Hunt made it through four in fine form but got a major case of yips in the fifth. The good news is that when the dust had settled the long flight home was full of relatively happy kids who did beat the #2 ranked team, albeit on the first weekend of the season.
Of course the Pittsburgh Panther baseball bunch didn’t even need an airplane and was sailing on happy meals with a sweep of Wichita State—first time WSU has been swept at home in 3-game series since 1970. See there is a silver lining playbook.
ELSEWHERE ON THE SPORTS PAGE—Meanwhile it was also a winning weekend for the fourth-ranked Long Beach State men’s volleyball team. On Friday they dispatched Pacific 3-0 (25-19, 25-22, 25-19) and was dominant in a 25-20, 25-18, 25-11 smashing of No. 3 Stanford Saturday evening.
It took just 80 minutes to take down the Cardinal for their third-straight victory. They improved to 11-4 overall and 9-3 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation to remain in a tie for second in the conference standings and lessening the worry about making the MPSF tourney, currently up for grabs between hosting dreams of BYU and UCI.
LBSU hit a sizzling .397, while holding Stanford to a .152 attack percentage. Junior Taylor Crabb led the way with 15 kills (.444). Junior Jeff Ornee finished with seven kills on .750 hitting and added a match-high 11 digs. Junior Dalton Ammerman also chipped in eight kills and two aces. Junior Connor Olbright directed the offense with 35 assists.
The best of the beach effort was in game three when the Niners jumped out to a 12-4 lead on a double block by Ornee and Taylor Gregory and then outscore the Cardinal, 13-7, the rest of the way (LB accounted for the final five points) en route to the convincing 25-11 win. Long Beach State is back in action this Friday night on the road at Cal State Northridge.
On the softer side, Kim Sowder did earn her 200th win as a Beach head coach but on the weekend the Niners split, losing and winning by big numbers. They lost 10-1 to Oregon, had to come back to beat Seattle 16-9, got Kim’s magic number in an 8-1 romp over Nevada but the Sunday get away day got away in a 3-1 loss to Utah. This weekend the traveling sweethearts of swat play the toughest field yet in the Cathedral City classic with games against Tennessee, Arizona, Oklahoma State, UNLV and Syracuse.
Last add milestones, our adopted LBC guy John Merrick (a Recreation Park regular and in that Virginia Country club young guns group with John Mallinger) won his first PGA Tour event–the big money Northern Trust Open at the posh Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades.
NOTES FROM THE NEWS PAGE—as you might have guessed, knowing that LBSU is really an acronym for “low Budget State University”, the fine play by play voice for men’s basketball Rob Brender is definitely a Niner part timer. His full time duties are as a deputy sheriff for San Bernardino County and he was on duty all during the manhunt—starting his shift at 5:30AM, coming down the mountain to his Pyramid mike, then back at work the next morning. Condolences to all the San Berdoo folks for the loss of their fellow officer.
The other news notes have to do with the potential rebuild of the Olympic Plaza pool. The University of course still plays water polo but does not have teams in swimming and diving. The kids from private team Shore Aquatics were lined up to speak at City Council but got jumped by a LBSU rep to give testimony, ironically both sides encouraging a rebuild the once glamorous facility. Again, it is all about the Benjamins. Stay tuned, these deals really take a long time.—DR. DAN