This Saturday evening, the Long Beach State men’s volleyball team will begin their postseason journey in the MPSF Tournament, a journey they hope will be as successful as last year’s Final Four appearance—it will be tough. The road begins at Pepperdine, at 7pm, in a rematch with the Waves, who’ve already beat Long Beach State twice this season (in five and four sets). The 49ers also have a five-match losing streak going with the Waves, including a loss last year in the MPSF tourney, and the Final Four defeat.
In the 49ers two losses this season they hit .306 as a team, but allowed the Waves to hit .332. Dean Bittner paced The Beach with 59 kills and a .363 hitting percentage on 113 swings in the two matches. Nobody else had more than 23 kills for LBSU.
But as tall a task as a road win on Saturday will be, this might be the time—right now the 49ers are on a four-match win streak, including an impressive four-set domination of then-No. 3 Northridge. The team seems to be gelling in their final weeks with Olympics-bound Alan Knipe, and these 49ers are hoping to get a run going.
Our own Ryan Thies will have a live blog going on the site during the game on Saturday, so if you can’t make the drive come check us out! Of course, we’ll have a photo gallery, a full writeup, and a video highlight after the game as well!
Watten Makes History
Dustin Watten has done something no other 49er has ever done. Watten had 20 digs against Cal State Northridge to mark the second time he had 20 digs in a match this season. He had 22 at Stanford earlier this season. Watten’s two 20-dig matches mark the first time in school history a 49er has had multiple 20-dig matches in the same season. Watten is also just one of three Beach players, joining Rick Arce (1985-86) and Jason Stimpfig (1990-93), to have multiple 20-dig matches in their careers.
Watten has also set three records during his career at Long Beach State. The Long Beach native set the single-season digs record at The Beach this year and now has 342 digs, 60 more than Stimpfig’s old record of 282 in 1993. Watten is also the career and season record holder for most matches with 10 or more digs. He has 22 matches with 10-plus digs this year breaking the old record of 15 by Mark Kerins in 1990, while also passing Kerins (1987-90) for the career mark with 42 matches with 10 or more digs.
Watten moved into third place in career digs at UCSD last Friday, passing Stimpfig (1990-93) for third all-time with 799. Zach Small (1990-93) holds the career record with 886.
From LBSU reports