The No. 3 seed Long Beach State men’s volleyball team will take on the No. 6 seed Pepperdine in the quarterfinals of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation quarterfinals Saturday in the Walter Pyramid.
After a final win against UC Irvine in the last regular season match, the 49ers (23-6, 17-5 MPSF) finished in a three-way tie for second with UCLA and Stanford. UCLA won the tiebreaker to take the second seed in the playoffs, but the 49ers edged Stanford to secure the third seed. BYU locked up the No. 1 seed in the tournament.
The 49ers beat the Waves (13-10, 12-10 MPSF) in both matches this season, notching their most recent victory against Pepperdine on March 31 in Malibu. LBSU head coach Alan Knipe said that for his team to come out on top, they can’t be worried about what Pepperdine is doing, but focus on what his team knows how to do.
“We got to control the things on our side of the net and that is how we practice how we prepare,” Knipe said. “Attention to detail on the things that we think are important.”
Freshman opposite hitter Kyle Ensing said that for his team to notch that third win against the Waves, the concentration needs to be on passing and serving and it is something that his team can always improve upon.
“I think if we just play our game and take it practice by practice and focus on what we need to do in the game and we need to play them like we did the two times before,” Ensing said.
Pepperdine has been a dominant force the past few seasons in the MPSF tournament, making it to the finals last season, but ultimately falling to UC Irvine.
LBSU has not made it past the quarterfinals in the MPSF tournament the last two years, falling to Hawai’i last season and Pepperdine in 2014.
The Waves are coming off of consecutive losses away from home to UC Santa Barbara and UCLA. Pepperdine has a 1-6 record in the MPSF quarterfinals when playing on the road as opposed to a 9-1 record when at the Firestone Fieldhouse in Malibu.
Senior middle blocker Taylor Gregory said that the focus for this game is coming from energy and effort, especially after the last regular season match against UC Irvine.
“It’s more of a focus on us and how we’re gonna play, especially momentum wise. It’s gonna come from our energy and effort,” Gregory said. “We know it’s the playoff atmosphere and everyone’s gonna be going hard and we have to go harder.”
For the 49ers, the process of integrating the new players into the team has been something that they have been working on since September. Gregory admitted that there have been rough spots throughout the season, but that the team has grown and come closer together.
“I think we’ve been working with this new group of guys and being together…and making sure we’re on the same page with each other,” Gregory said. “I think the last week or so it’s been really good and has kind of turned a corner in a sense that, the mentality on the court is we’re all in it for each other.”
The 49ers take on the Waves inside the Walter Pyramid Saturday for the MPSF quarterfinals starting at 7 p.m.