Baseball, Men's Sports, Men's Track & Field, Men's Volleyball, Sports

The Beach stays hot

Long Beach State continually climbs toward the top by having a respectable athletics program.

Three Big West championships in the spring helped LBSU claim its fourth straight Commissioner’s Cup, an award given to the top athletics program in the conference, while women’s tennis, softball and men’s track and field were the titleholders that helped LBSU surpass Cal Poly by one point. This marked the narrowest margin of victory in the 16 years of the competition. These three teams, however, aren’t the only ones making noise at The Beach.

Men’s Track and Field

LBSU men’s track and field team qualified 22 individuals to the NCAA West Preliminary Championships after coming off its second consecutive Big West championship two weeks ago. Although more than half the qualifiers didn’t achieve the automatic bid last week, three 49ers did: sophomore Willie Alexander (long jump), junior Chris Low (800m) and sophomore Chris Enriquez (10,000m) will represent LBSU at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championship in Eugene, Ore. from June 11-14.

Low established a school record 1:47:52, entering the national championships with a No. 8 ranking while Alexander and Enriquez are both ranked 16th in their respective events.

With strong performances at the West Preliminary last weekend, the 49ers jumped 33 spots to No. 77 in the latest U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association national rankings, the highest ranked out of the Big West. They were also fifth in the final USTFCCCA West Region rankings, surpassing Pac-12 members Washington, Arizona, UCLA, Washington State and Stanford.

Men’s Volleyball

Taylor Crabb continues to put his name in the books after four impressive years on the LBSU men’s volleyball team. After he garnered the most kills on his team, led the nation with 4.80 kills per set, ranked second in points per set (5.33), and held the top-15 honor in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation in digs per set (2.16) and hitting percentage (.371), Crabb was named a Volleyball Magazine NCAA All-American for the third time in his career.

Baseball 

After ranking 22nd in the nation in ERA and 18th in hits per nine innings and accomplishing the second longest streak in scoreless innings in school history, senior Josh Frye was selected to Collegiate Baseball’s Louisville Slugger All-American Second-Team. Frye is the first Dirtbag All-American since 2008.

Similar to Frye, freshman shortstop Garrett Hampson became the first Dirtbag to be selected to the Freshmen All-American team after being crowned Big West Freshman Player of the Year and the All-Big West First Team shortstop, and led his team with 74 hits and 44 runs scored.

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