Soccer, Sports, Women's Sports

Long Beach sweeps Fullerton in well-rounded effort

Within the first few minutes of the game, Fullerton senior outside hitter Madeline Schneider hit the floor after jumping for the ball and suffered an injury to her left knee. She sat out the remainder of the game, and Fullerton was depleted before having a chance at Long Beach Tuesday night.

Long Beach (12-9, 4-4 Big West) capitalized on the unexpected injury and went on to defeat Fullerton (6-15, 0-8 Big West) 25-6, 25-21, 25-14 in its second sweep of conference play.

“Big win for us going into the weekend,” head coach Joy McKienzie-Fuerbringer said. “We’ve been playing good volleyball, what our team has really been working on is limiting unforced errors. We’ve been doing that in practice so it was nice to see us take it from practice into live play.”

The win came at a much needed time for the 49ers, after losing four of their last five games, the last being to Hawai’i 3-1. It also prepares them for the tough weekend ahead, as they’ll face Santa Barbara and No. 12 Cal Poly, both teams they’ve lost to earlier in the season.

Long Beach came in looking dominant and started off the first set with a 10 point run. It didn’t allow Fullerton to lead until the third set, and showed control on the floor throughout the game.

“We got a lot of hitters to contribute, we got Alison [Martinez]and [Megan] Kruidhof coming off the bench which are two big kids that can add to our attack,” McKienzie-Fuerbringer said.

The win allowed McKienzie-Fuerbringer to even out some playing time, and the 49ers completed a well-rounded game with outside hitters freshman Martinez and senior Kruidhof leading in kills and freshman defensive setter Dylan Dela Cruz leading with eight digs. Martinez was one kill away from her career high, at 11 along with one block.

“I think it has a lot to do with our setters, they’re giving me a lot of great balls right now,” Martinez said. “I feel like connecting with them has gotten a lot better throughout the season and just all the support from my teammates has really helped.”

The added rotation helped Long Beach play a controlled game, giving players time to rest and re-enter energized. The team looked happy on the court, seamlessly switching out and displaying dominance over Fullerton.

The 49ers’ strong defense held the Titans to .022 hitting and forced 22 errors as they couldn’t regroup after losing Schneider.

“We’re working a lot in practice on our defense and we’ve got good ball control, we’ve been able to use freshman Dylan Dela Cruz who’s really come in. She can do a lot of different things, she’s more on the quiet side it’s like we have a little quiet assassin on ourside,” McKienzie-Fuerbringer said. “I’ve mentioned this before, it’s just where do [the players] all fit, it’s hard to have everyone out there so we’re trying to figure out how to utilize everyone.”

Long Beach hopes to create a winning streak 7 p.m. Friday against Santa Barbara, then 7 p.m. Saturday against Cal Poly.

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