The562’s coverage of Long Beach State athletics for the 2024-25 season is sponsored by Marilyn Bohl.
The Long Beach State men’s volleyball team got a split on the road against Hawaii last weekend, taking down the Rainbow Warriors in four sets on Friday night before falling to them in five sets on Saturday, in a match where they outplayed the Bows but committed too many service errors to win.
“I’m really proud of the guys, we were battling some things but I feel like we played a really, really good mature match on Friday,” said LBSU coach Alan Knipe. “Saturday it ends up 13 all in the fifth and you’re a play away–we didn’t get the play and they did, so there’s some execution things we can work on.”
The Beach was once again playing in front of sold-out crowds, as they’ve done all year buoyed by both their No. 1 national ranking and by the presence of star setter Moni Nikolov, a social media phenomenon due to his physicality and creative style of play. By securing the split, the Beach are still in first place in the Big West, now tied with Hawaii. Since the Beach won in four sets and Hawaii won in five, Long Beach State holds the tiebreaker for the No. 1 seed in the Big West Tournament should both teams win out.
The Beach retained the unanimous No. 1 ranking in the nation in this week’s AVCA poll, while Hawaii rose to No. 3, trailing only UCLA (who LBSU beat twice earlier this season). The 24-2 campaign thus far for the Beach is even more impressive considering that they’re playing three freshmen, and that All-American Sotiris Siapanis has been out virtually all year along with anticipated starting middle blocker Lazar Bouchkov.
In Friday night’s win, the Beach were dominant in a 25-21, 25-18, 18-25, 25-21 victory. They outhit the Bows .365 to .294 and got 17 kills from Daniil Hershtynovich and 15 from Alex Kandev. They also outserved the Bows with six aces to Hawaii’s three, while committing 18 service errors to Hawaii’s 17.
The next night, service errors were the primary culprit in a five-set thriller defeat, 21-25, 25-20, 18-25, 25-19, 15-13. The Beach outhit Hawaii once again by a good margin, .336 to .288, unblocked them 13.5 to 10.5, and committed two less hitting errors. The difference in the game was 27 service errors by the Beach compared to just 17 by Hawaii, as the Beach handed the Bows more than a full set’s worth of points on missed serves.
“I think it came down to execution,” said Knipe. “Hawaii played really well, but when we look at it we won almost every statistical category. Twenty-seven service errors is a lot, and that’s the glaring weakness of the match for us. We need to be better in that area, at the same time we’re trying to service like a team with aspirations to play deep into the season. There’s a fine balance there. We can be better with that–there’s the travel and the back to back in a great environment. You’re usually not better serving the second night just because of the legs.”
In all more than 20,000 fans were in attendance for the two matches.
The Beach will close out the regular season this week with a pair of matches against UCSD; they’ll travel to the Tritons on Friday at 7pm and then host them back in the Walter Pyramid on Saturday at 7pm. The Big West Tournament will be back in Hawaii the following week from April 24-26. Should the Beach make the NCAA Tournament, which is even more of a virtual certainty after last weekend’s matches in Hawaii, they would travel to Columbus, OH for the NCAA Tournament May 8-12.
