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The No. 2-ranked Long Beach State men’s volleyball team shook off a slow start and came to life along with the 2,000+ fans gathered at the Walter Pyramid for the Beach’s Big West opener, hosting No. 15 UC Santa Barbara. Long Beach dropped the first set before roaring to full strength and taking the match 22-25, 25-21, 25-20, 25-20.
“It was a typical Big West match in a lot of ways,” said LBSU coach Alan Knipe. “We’ll look back when we watch the video and I’m sure notice quite a few opportunities in the first set that we wish we could’ve gotten back. You can’t get them back, though, what you can do is do something about it. I thought we settled down well.”
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The Beach hit .411 in the match behind a season-high 52 assists from setter Aidan Knipe, with the team hitting .547 on the 95 sets he made on the evening. Skyler Varga had 19 kills on .395 hitting and Sotiris Siapanis added 15 kills on .480 hitting, with Clarke Godbold putting up 14 kills at a .345 clip.
The Beach dropped a sluggish first set 25-22 as they were out hit .414 to .333. UCSB led by as much as 20-13 as they jumped on the Beach early and took advantage of several early hitting errors. The Beach had a hard time catching up to UCSB right side hitter Geste Bianchi as he had nine kills on .615 hitting in the opening frame; for the Beach, Skyler Varga had six kills on nine swings but no one else hit over .250.
“It was a little weird in the first set overall, but for us it’s just trying to move on,” said libero Mason Briggs, who had 11 digs, a match-high. “That’s what I’ve taken as my role. Trying to get myself to move on and then spread that to everyone else.”
Long Beach State took it to the Gauchos in set two, pulling away late after winning a challenge on a touch call to take a 24-21 lead that had originally been ruled to put the Gauchos within a point at 23-22. Varga continued his hot performance with a big spike for set point, his 10th kill of the evening. The Beach won the second set 25-21 and outhit the visitors .480 to .375 in the frame, getting their block going as well with Torwie stuffing three, including one as part of a big momentum moment in a triple block.
The Gauchos got off to a strong start in the third frame, building a 15-13 lead at the break. The Beach responded with a dominant 6-0 run across a UCSB timeout that tilted things in their favor, and quickly were in command. They won the set outhitting their opponent .375 to .267 as Varga continued to have a great night, and Sotiris Siapanis got his 11th kills, while Clarke Godbold rebounded from a slow start to get his 12th kill.
Varga said that 6-0 run with the Pyramid rocking was a highlight.
“Any kind of momentum like that is super fun, when everyone’s getting into it,” he said. “It was a sleepy start at the beginning, those runs fire you up.”
The Beach remained fully in control in the fourth set, riding big waves of adulation from the Pyramid crowd with lots of high-flying action. The highlight was a big bouncer in the middle from Lazar Bouchkov on a great timing set by Aidan Knip followed by a pancake dig from Knipe leading to a big open-net kill from Siapanis to put the Beach up 11-6. The Beach took a 15-11 lead at the break on a dodgeball duck by libero Mason Briggs to get under a serve hit just long by the Gauchos.
UCSB pushed back to pull within a point at 17-16 on a kill off the block, but a service error followed by an attack error on an overpass attempt and a big block by Bouchkov and Siapanis put the Beach back up 20-16. They took the frame 25-20 on a Godbold kill off the block.
UCSB was led by Bianchi’s 25 kills, with no other Gaucho reaching double digits. The Beach will face UCSB again Saturday evening up in Santa Barbara on a quick turnaround.
