Sports, Women's Sports, Women's Volleyball

LBSU closes out non-conference with win No. 799 for Gimmillaro

The Long Beach State women’s volleyball team bounced back from a disappointing loss against UCLA on Friday night by sweeping Oregon State on Saturday, and adding another victory to head coach Brian Gimmillaro’s record.

Gimmillaro came into the match against the Beavers with a 798-208 career record, the most wins by a head coach in LBSU history. With the 49ers beating the Oregon State 3-0, Gimmillaro is now one win shy of 800.

“We’ll think about [records] years from now,” Gimmillaro said. “I didn’t even know about [nearing 800 wins] until today and the 799 until right now.”

The 49ers (10-3) opened up the weekend with a double-header against the same two opponents they faced last season in the NCAA tournament.

The Beach managed to hang on and defeat No. 21 San Diego (6-5) in five sets on Friday morning. But the 49ers ran out of gas later in the day in their rematch against No. 14 UCLA (9-1), falling 3-1. The 49ers defeated San Diego in the first round of last year’s tournament before losing to UCLA in round two.

“I think we both played difficult matches this morning so coming in here you’re not going to be at full strength and you just try to minimize errors,” UCLA Head Coach Michael Sealy said. “Both teams took a lot of really good games and both had really bad stretches. Our team was able to capitalize on [LBSU’s] mistakes.”

In the first set, UCLA capitalized on the 49er mistakes. After cutting UCLA’s lead to 19-17, the Bruins then went on their third run of the set to win 25-20.

The 49ers redeemed their first set miscues by coming out with more control in the second, jumping to a quick 4-1 lead that would hold until the end of the set. LBSU snapped UCLA’s 12-set win streak by taking the second set 25-19.

“It’s definitely intimidating, we know about how we faced them last year in the playoffs,” LBSU freshman hitter Carly Beddingfield said. “We came back in the second set and had a lot of hope that we could pull it off but it really didn’t go our way.”

LBSU had some momentum, but with sophomore middle blocker Ashley Murray leaving the game with an abdominal injury, Gimmillaro said the 49ers didn’t have enough.

“What are you going to do? When Ashley had to come out of the game, we had no more middles left,” Gimmillaro said. “When you don’t have [Annete Brinke], you don’t have [Sheridan Atkinson] and now you don’t have Ashley; you’re not going to win without all three of them.”

The Bruins took the final two sets to win 3-1.

Although the 49ers were missing Murray, junior outside hitter Nele Barber stepped up on Saturday to help LBSU bounce back from the loss.

Barber had a big hitting night, hammering down 16 kills and picking up 17 digs against Oregon State; good for her seventh straight double-double performance.

“I just try to stay calm on the court and push myself to get the points,” Barber said. “Usually when I have pressure on me, I play better.”

The Beavers put up some resistance in the second set, going up 18-13 at one point before the 49ers went on a 12-3 run to close out the set. Gimmillaro said he was shocked by how the 49ers were able to breeze through the match.

“I was surprised by how [Oregon State] was playing, because they’re a good team and we thought that they would be [better],” Gimmillaro said. “We put some pressure on them and then there was some unusual play out there and then we did ok, for not having Ashley [Murray].”

LBSU will look to pick up Gimmillaro’s 800th victory in the conference opener against UC Davis on Friday night at the Walter Pyramid.

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