When JJ and I were sportswriters working for a Long Beach State newspaper, women’s volleyball head coach Brian Gimmillaro once referred to a match going to the fifth set as the equivalent of sudden death. “Anything can happen,” he said, explaining his team’s loss and his surprisingly calm reaction to it. For two nights in a row, now, his 49ers have taken very good teams to sudden death, and showed the killer instinct they’ve been lacking all season in putting it away in crunch time. Friday night it was Cal Poly, and on Saturday they took care of UC Santa Barbara in the ‘Myd, 23-25, 25-21, 24-26, 25-19, 15-9. The win lifts the 49ers to 14-3.
Freshman Caitlin Ledoux led the for the 49ers with a career-high 22 kills and 14 digs and Quincy Verdin finished with a season-high in kills with 20 for The Beach. Long Beach State nearly hit .300 on the night, but the defense was the key, as the 49ers posted 86 digs and 13 blocks, led by senior libero Iris Murray and Ashley Lee who each finished with 20 digs. As a team, the 49ers had five players in double-digit digs overall, as Ledoux, Nicole Vargas and Lauren Minkel all topped 10 digs.
The teams split the first two sets despite a hitting advantage for the Beach, as UCSB took advantage of some late serving errors to steal game one. Long Beach State rallied in the second set, utilizing 11 hitting errors from UC Santa Barbara to get the 25-21 win. After being held to .068 hitting in the second set, the Gauchos came out of the break with some hot hitting from Lauren McLaughlin who had a big night for UCSB with 27 kills and 20 digs. The Gauchos hit .340 overall, finishing with 18 kills and just two errors to outlast The Beach 26-24 in the third set.
UC Santa Barbara had stopped Verdin from having a lot of success early, but the senior came alive in the third set with nine kills, and joined Ledoux in carrying the 49ers offensively. Down 9-5 early, the 49ers came back to grab their first lead at 17-16, and then posted three straight blocks to move ahead 21-16 on the way to a 25-19 win. Similar to Friday’s match, the 49ers came out and took control early in the deciding set. They won the first two points, and got their first ace of the night from Ledoux to stake the team to a 3-0 lead. Ledoux’s final kill put the 49ers ahead 10-5, and when the Gauchos made a small rally to 11-8, the 49ers hit Brittney Herzog for a big sideout as the 49ers closed out the match for their fourth straight win.
After three straight home matches, Long Beach State heads to the road for two Big West matches next week against UC Irvine and UC Riverside. The 49ers will return home for a non-conference game on Tuesday, October 21st against Notre Dame.
From reports by LBSU’s Roger Kirk