The No. 24 Long Beach State women’s volleyball team will begin the second half of the Big West Conference the way they started the first – on the road. But this time, they’re 8-0.
“It’s a long season left,” head coach Brian Gimmillaro said. “There’s a lot of volleyball left, and it’s exciting.”
The 49ers (18-4, 8-0 Big West) will face Hawai’i next weekend, but their first test will be against Cal State Northridge this Saturday in the Matadome.
“We’ve been home for four and away for four,” Gimmillaro said. “You’ve got the second and third [best teams] in the conference, and we’re going to their homes now.”
LBSU has recorded its best conference start since 2001, when the squad finished with an 18-0 season.
“The trademark of the team is improving,” Gimmillaro said. “That’s the key. Whatever you have in the beginning might be great or not great, but improvement is the answer. Does that mean you win all the time? No. But improvement is what you look for.”
The Matadors (14-6, 5-3 Big West) are tied for third in the conference with UC Irvine and UC Davis, but hold a better overall record than the other two.
“Being undefeated in conference is really good, so that gives us a sense of confidence,” junior outside hitter Alex Reid said. “But at the same time, we’re still trying to get better and improve every practice, because no matter who you play, the game’s never going to be easy.”
LBSU won the first meeting against CSUN 3-1, but Reid said playing in the Pyramid will be different than playing in the Matadome.
“I think it’ll be harder just because they have a really big fan base, and it’s a smaller gym,” Reid said. “There’s a lot of distractions going on, but I think just as long as we stick to our game, [continue] playing how we play and do well like we did last time, we’ll be fine.”
CSUN had a slow start in the first match, dropping the first two sets. But they came back winning the third set, hitting .324.
The Matadors were short of forcing a deciding set when they lost the fourth 25-22.
Senior Bre Mackie led The Beach with 16 kills, and Reid contributed a double-double, recording 15 kills and 13 digs.
“We’ve definitely improved [on] just everything,” Reid said. “It’s been little things, like snapping your wrist a certain way. Each player has made little improvements in their game, which as a whole, made us better.”
The Matadors are 2-1 at home, losing their only home game to UC Davis in five sets. But the 49ers plan to come in with a specific game plan to pull out the road win.
“I think if we’re aggressive with our serving and consistent with our passing, we’re a really strong team,” Reid said. “If we can focus on having a really good serving and passing game, we’ll do really well.”
Before going on the road, LBSU will host Zhejiang, the champions of the Chinese Volleyball League, Thursday night in an exhibition game inside the Walter Pyramid.
Zhejiang holds a 3-1 record against four Texas teams while on its tour of the United States. It started with a five-set win over Texas Tech and 3-0 wins over Wayland Baptist and Texas Christian University. The No. 5 Texas team swept the Chinese National Team to give them its only loss.
The match against Zhejiang is set to begin at 7 p.m. in the Walter Pyramid; the match against CSUN will start at 7 p.m. on Saturday in the Matadome.