This has been a tough weekend for Long Beach State Sports–Dirtbags (0-2); Men’s Basketball (eliminated); the BLR (defeated). But so far, Long Beach State Men’s Volleyball is holding up a torch a showing us a way.
This was a team win, as 15.5 team blocks attests to; early on they built a wall everywhere and held Penn State to .061 hitting in game 1.
But as anyone who’s followed this year’s team knows: sometimes things are going your way…
And suddenly, they’re not.
Dan Alexander had a big day (10 kills, 10 block assists), and picked up All-Tournament Honors.
The Tournament MVP, of course, went to #18. Dean Bittner had 3 aces, 4 digs, 5 blocks assists, and 18 kills (at a .325 clip).
But a huge All-Tourney omission was your favorite libero and mine; Dustin Watten, despite leading the country in digs, still seems to be underrated.
In a close win like this though it takes a lot of guys stepping up to seal the deal, and Kyle Friend (seen here with one of his 11 kills) and Jim Baughman, who also had 11, were a big reason why this one went LBSU’s way.
A quick note for every volleyball player that whined about having to do the joust drill (where two players fight for a jump ball) in practice, well sometimes it comes in really handy…by the way, it was this play when LBSU finally showed that they just wanted it more.
Prospector Pete is a man of the people. Never let anyone tell you otherwise.
You may remember it was only last week lost in five games to the third and fifth best teams in the country. Well, I will admit that there were some frazzled nerves in the stands during this week’s five game match against #4 Penn State. But in the end the boys pulled it out. They’ve got more tough games ahead, including rematches at USC and Pepperdine, but first next weekend they go to #9 BYU for a game Friday and Saturday.
If they are in fact holding up the torch and showing us the way, well then I guess we’ve got no choice but to follow them closely.