The562’s coverage of Long Beach State athletics for the 2024-25 season is sponsored by Marilyn Bohl.
The Hawaii men’s volleyball team has the best home court advantage in the NCAA, and the Rainbow Warriors flexed their home crowd muscle on Saturday night in the Big West Championship against top-ranked Long Beach State. The Beach battled and put together some impressive stretches but ultimately couldn’t overcome the ‘Bows or the 8,500 fans on hand to cheer them on in a 25-21, 25-22, 21-25, 25-22 win for Hawaii.
The loss drops Long Beach State to 27-3 on the season, with two of those three losses coming at Hawaii. While the conference tournament crown escapes the Beach, they’re still the regular season conference champs and will have a shot at the one they truly care about: the NCAA championship. The Beach are still a virtual lock to make the NCAA Tournament as an at-large, with the bracket slated to be unveiled at 1pm on NCAA.com on Sunday.
The NCAA Tournament will be at Ohio State May 8-12.
The Beach dropped the first two sets as Hawaii hit .500 in the first and .600 in the second while easily handling Long Beach’s service pressure. The Beach changed their serving order in the third set to allow star freshman Moni Nikolov to serve a three-passer look, and he ripped four aces to give them a big lead that they never lost.
The Beach were once again up in the fourth and looked good to force a fifth as they led 12-6. But Hawaii caught up, and after it was tied 20-20 the ‘Bows scored three straight points on Beach errors, eventually going on to win the frame and the match.
Hawaii outhit the Beach .411 to .342 in the match, as they were led by Nikolov’s 47 assists, four aces, seven kills, and two blocks. Skyler Varga had an uncharacteristically bad night with eight kills on just .120 hitting, with five errors. Nato Dickinson had his best career match for the Beach with 21 kills on .485 hitting along with seven digs.
