On senior night, No.1 Long Beach State men’s volleyball cruised to its 20th straight set victory of the season over conference for Cal State Northridge at the Walter Pyramid Saturday.
The win sends the 49ers streaking heading into the MPSF Tournament.
After a closely matched first set, LBSU shook off the jitters of the pregame ceremony and returned to the consistent play it has enjoyed all season. LBSU sent Northridge home quickly by dominating each set (25-18, 25-15, 25-17).
“I thought our guys did a good job of serving tough and created a lot of out of system blocker defense opportunities and we got a lot of converts out of that,” coach Alan Knipe said. “I thought we were able to establish some things offensively that we have been working on but more importantly we were able to keep the momentum in our favor by executing and keeping the pressure on them.”
With the victory, LBSU clinched the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation title and home court advantage throughout the tournament. Many of the players felt the pressure of facing a conference opponent with home court on the line.
“I felt like we came in here with a pretty straight mindset,” senior middle blocker Bryce Yould said. “We kind of knew what we needed to do and in order to host the playoffs and we needed to come out firing.”
With so much on the line and it being senior night, LBSU had to avoid all the distractions and treat this match like it was the playoffs.
“I think we came in with a really good attitude to this game,” said senior libero Andrew Sato. “We treated this like a playoff game, they were a team that was going to come out and play hard and we can never underestimate them and that’s how we prepared.”
With the conference title and home court clinched, LBSU can now focus on the MPSF tournament and its ultimate goal of winning a championship – but the team knows there is a lot of work to be done.
“We get to stay at home, we get to be more in our routine and we get to play in our building in front of our fans,” Knipe said. “Other than that, we have to go out and play good volleyball.”
LBSU knows it can’t let the number one in front of their name affect the games, but being at home gives the 49ers a sense of comfort they have been working toward all season.
“It feels amazing. It is a huge relief that it is finally here and our body of work led us to get to this point. It is always nice to play in front of our home crowd,” Sato said.
LBSU will host USC in the quarterfinals on Saturday at the Walter Pyramid at 7 p.m.