Men's Volleyball, Sports

LBSU clinches MPSF tournament berth in upset

The 49er senior trio of Dustin Watten, Luke Shea and Daniel Fabry ended their home careers at the Walter Pyramid with a big victory over the third-ranked Cal State Northridge Matadors Saturday night.

“It’s the last [home] game and there was a lot of emotion going on,” Watten said. “We had a lot of pride in knowing that we weren’t going to let this team beat us.”

The Long Beach State (13-13, 10-11 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) attack kept CSUN on its heels all night and won its third consecutive game, 34-32, 30-25, 23-30, 30-25.

Dean Bittner had a game-high 25 kills with four digs and three aces. Josh Riley added 15 kills and seven digs while Dan Alexander chipped in with 10 kills and three blocks.

The Matadors (22-6, 15-6 MPSF) only had one player to hit double digits in kills with Eric Vance collecting 23.

The match started in favor of Northridge as it jumped out to a 4-0 lead, forcing a quick timeout by head coach Alan Knipe.

The Beach struggled early on but closed the gap with a 3-0 run to make the score 8-12 and force CSUN to regroup with a timeout of its own. The battle continued but the play of Alexander, Bittner and Jim Baughman was the difference as The Beach took set one.

LBSU rode the momentum from the opening set to take the second despite only hitting .158. Pure determination gave the ‘Niners the edge as they refused to give the Matadors life.

In the only set that The Beach lost, the 49ers managed to hit a paltry .062 and were out-blocked, 3-1.5.

In the final set, LBSU started the frame with a service ace by Bittner and reclaimed command of the net. The 49ers were not seriously threatened by the Matadors and a Riley kill put the exclamation point on the match.

With the MPSF Tournament set to start April 25, the 49ers clinched a spot in the eight-team tournament with the victory.

Knipe just wants the opportunity to play in the tournament, regardless of location.

“We’ll play at Pepperdine, UCLA it doesn’t matter; wherever we go our fans will follow. Although we’d like to play here in front of them, the goal is to get to the National Championship game,” Knipe said.

Watten, who finished with 20 digs, two assists and one kill, shared the same frame of mind.

“We just feel like we’re not going to lose for the rest of the year and we’re gonna go straight to the [NCAA] Championship,” he said.

The 49ers have not won on the road since February 25 when they beat the UCLA Bruins in three sets.

LBSU will end the regular season on the road they face the UCSD Tritons on Friday at 7 p.m.

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