The Long Beach State men’s volleyball team showed some guts when it handed No.1 Pepperdine its first loss of the season in five sets (25-14, 21-25, 21-25, 25-23 and 15-11) Friday night after getting swept by Southern California two nights earlier.
“The schedule and all the traveling we do is brutal, but that’s no excuse to why we couldn’t play the way we did tonight against [USC],” head coach Alan Knipe said. “But this week is a good week for us because it builds character.”
An almost flawless performance allowed the 49ers (4-3, 3-3 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) to dominate the first set with a .357 hitting percentage over the Waves’ .000. Ian Satterfield and Jeff Ornee each had two kills to give the 49ers a 7-2 lead. With zero service errors and effortless blocking, the 49ers cruised to end the set at 25-14.
Both teams went neck and neck with nine ties and five lead changes in the second set until three consecutive Josh Taylor kills gave the Waves (4-1, 4-1 MPSF) an edge at 19-15. Taylor went on to make his team’s last three kills and led his team to a 25-21 win.
The 49ers trailed the entire third set and had as big as an eight-point deficit at 22-14 as Taylor and his teammate Parker Kalmbach remained unstoppable. Two more kills gave the Waves a set point, but the 49ers attempted a come back with a four-point run to cut the deficit by three. A hitting error ended the 49ers’ hope at 21-25.
Roles switched as the 49ers led most of the fourth set by as many as four points and trailed for the first and only time in the set at 21-22. A Kalmbach kill kept it tied at 23-23, but two hitting errors handed the 49ers a win at 25-23.
In the fifth set, the 49ers trailed 6-8 at the side switch. They were able to snatch a late advantage, though, as Ornee, Taylor Crabb and Connor Olbright forced five hitting errors from the Waves, ending the decisive set at 15-11.
Crabb carried the 49ers with a double-double (24 kills, 13 digs) while Satterfield delivered a career-high 19 kills.
Pepperdine had three players with double-doubles: Taylor (28 kills, 10 digs), Kalmbach (22 kills, 11 digs) and Matt West (53 assists, 17 digs).
Although the Waves racked up more kills, digs and aces than the 49ers, LBSU was able to acquire twice as many blocks (41 to 17) and committed less hitting errors (19 to 38) to come out victorious.
“[USC] was kind of an awakening for us,” Crabb said. “We felt terrible in front of our home crowd losing like that. The next practice, we focused on key things like blocking and defense, and it showed tonight because we had a ton of blocks and were scrappy, which was what we needed.”
The 49ers will travel to Northern California next week for a match against Stanford on Friday and at Pacific on Saturday. Both matches begin at 7 p.m.