With the ongoing wildfires in the Los Angeles area, the Long Beach State Men’s Volleyball team had a quick turnaround and a new opponent Friday night to open their season.
The Beach (1-0) started off fast and dominated in all phases on their way to a 25-13, 25-15, 25-12 sweep over Saint Francis in the Walter Pyramid.
LBSU’s schedule changed over the last 24 hours after their Fairleigh Dickinson match was cancelled. The Beach were able to add their match against Saint Francis after they opened the Gold Mine so UCLA could play Saint Francis after closures on their campus.
“We’re playing a night early on our home opener against a team we didn’t schedule,” Long Beach State coach Alan Knipe said. “So first of all, thank you to to Saint Francis and coach from me for making this happen for us, you know, the team we were supposed to play, had to go home because of the wildfires and the teams they were gonna play were really affected by that. There’s so much going on up there. It’s so horrific and tragic to watch. and there’s so there’s so many people affected by it all over.”
In the first set, LBSU and Saint Francis played a pretty close match, as they went point-for-point until the Beach took a 9-7 lead thanks to Daniil Hershtynovich who had a few kills in the first set.
The Beach then went on a 9-1 run thanks to Skyler Varga and Sotiris Siapanis.
“We talked about keeping our head on our swivel,” Varga said. “That’s part of our team culture, and I think it applies a lot with what happened this week, you know, like some pretty tragic stuff happened and we didn’t know what was gonna happen and you just got to keep your head on a swivel.”
Along with some of the returners that helped the team make it to the national championship last season, the Beach has some new faces – including freshman Moni Nikolov who will turn heads at the setter position standing at 6 feet 8 inches tall.
Whether it was his quick sets to his hitters, his own hitting ability or his imposing presence as part of the Beach’s block, Nikolov was impressive in his debut, dishing out 26 assists to go with his four kills, one ace and four block assists.
“I think it’s the optics of watching him play the first couple of times you watch him is unique, right?,” Knipe said. “Because on most any team you see that body, that physicality, you’d be the opposite or, you know, maybe a middle, or, you know, one and just crushing balls, but you know, he so I think it’s that people are just they’re not used to it, you know, first of all, so I think it catches people off guard. But he’s played so much volleyball and he’s so comfortable, playing volleyball, not just setting the ball.”
The Beach had an efficient night across the board finishing with .630 hitting, .865 serve and .964 receiving percentages.
Along with that, the team’s front line was dominate, with multiple guys having two or more blocking attempts. Ben Braun led the way with seven.
“Just having size everywhere kind of makes it harder for the hitter, I can’t even imagine trying to hit against that,” Braun said.
Hershtynovich and Vargas led the team with 7 kills apiece. Siapanis had 6 and Braun had five kills total for a balanced attack.
Long Beach State will hit the road as they travel to Missouri to take on Lindenwood where they will look to continue to evolve and see what this year’s team will become.
“We’re still learning what that means and what it looks like, but I think it’s gonna continue to evolve, and I think the more people watch the team, it’s a very dynamic team and it’s maybe the biggest and most physical team we’ve ever put on the court. So for people coming in here, it’s going to look a little bit different,” Knipe said.
