Men's Sports, Men's Volleyball, Sports

LBSU makes it three in row with wins against Stanford, Pepperdine

The Long Beach State men’s volleyball team moved into second place in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation after beating Stanford 3-1 on Friday and Pepperdine 3-0 on Saturday inside the Walter Pyramid.

LBSU head coach Alan Knipe said he welcomes having his team in tough spots and playing consecutive games will do just that. Knipe recalled the 49ers’ back-to-back games against then-No. 3 BYU on Jan. 22 and 23 great examples.

“I loved the fact that we had to play that BYU match 24 hours later,” Knipe said. “You talk about how to get battle tested and resilient; well, you’ve got to be in those situations to get that way.”

On Friday, the 49ers (9-2, 6-2) started by losing set one, 25-21, after seven unforced errors. Despite all the mistakes, Stanford committed five errors of its own that allowed LBSU to hang around.

The 49ers righted their wrongs in sets two and three, and only committed one error as they took both sets with relative ease, 25-18 and 25-20.

The lapses in concentration returned in set four after nine LBSU errors. The 49ers ultimately won the fourth set 25-23.

Knipe said he’ll work on limiting the errors, but overall he was satisfied with the 49ers’ performance.

“Early in set four we didn’t capitalize on some point scoring situations,” Knipe said. “We kept the game close when we could have gotten some separation. All that being said, I loved the composure of our guys late in the game.”

LBSU hadn’t won two games in the same weekend since beating Cal Baptist and Southern California on Jan. 15 and 16. But they did just that as they swept Pepperdine 3-0 on Saturday night.

The 49ers gave up an 11-5 lead early in the first set, but the team rallied and won a long set, 30-28.

Being down early didn’t hamper the team as they stayed composed and worked on getting one point at a time.

“We talk all the time that If there’s a gap and we’re down, we don’t need to get every point back on the next guy that goes back to serve,” Knipe said.

Each of the following two sets were highly contested, but the 49ers ended up on top both times. LBSU took set two 25-23 and set three 26-24.

The 49ers are 5-0 on day two of consecutive matches this season. Freshman outside hitter T.J. De Falco credited the team’s nutrition program as the reason why they are able to finish in back-to-back game situations. The program, which includes three meals a day, makes sure players have enough sustainable energy.

“It definitely helps out,” DeFalco said. “Whether we’re playing the way we want to or not, we have the energy to do so.”

Freshman Josh Tuaniga dished out 43 assists which led to three of his teammates reaching double figures in kills. De Falco led the way with 14 kills, while freshman Kyle Ensing had 12 and senior Taylor Gregory knocked down 10.

The 49ers’ next match is on Wednesday in a road game against Cal Baptist at 7 p.m.

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