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Long Beach State

Long Beach State Notebook: Fans Back In Stands For Big West Wins

About 500 fans returned to Walter Pyramid on Saturday to watch Long Beach State men’s volleyball celebrate Senior Night with a sweep of Cal State Northridge 25-23, 25-23, 25-18. It is the 23rd consecutive home Big West Conference win for the Beach.

The conference tournament is in Hawaii this week, and the Big West first-team includes LBSU’s Simon Anderson and Spencer Olivier. Andersen has contributed on both sides of the ball, hitting a team-leading .409 (69-13-137), while averaging 1.73 kills per set. He also recorded two 10-plus kill performances. Olivier averaged 3.83 kills per set. That is good for third in the Big West and 14th in the nation.

Mason Briggs, who was the Co-Big West Freshman of the Year last season, was named Honorable Mention after averaging 2.50 digs per set.Clarke Godbold and Simon Torwie made the All-Freshman Team. Godbold was second on the team with 2.53 kills and 1.63 digs per set. The 6’10” Torwie averaged 1.76 kills, 1.14 digs and 0.52 blocks per set.

Long Beach State Volleyball Welcomes Fans Back With Senior Night Sweep 

Softball

LBSU won an 11th consecutive game over the weekend as part of a four-game sweep at UC Santa Barbara. The Beach (20-5, 14-1) is still a game back of first-place Cal State Fullerton in the Big West standings.

Junior Alyssa Gonzalez was named Big West Field Player of the Week after having at least one hit and an RBI in all four games. She had two home runs and 10 RBI. Gonzalez is hitting .494, which is the best in the Big West. Her teammates Naomi Hernandez and Suzy Brookshire are also hitting over .400 and rank second and fourth in the conference, respectively.

LBSU hosts Cal Poly this weekend.

Baseball

The Dirtbags (10-9, 8-8) took two of three nonconferece games at Pacific last weekend while making history in a 28-10 win on Sunday. The 28 runs is the second-most for a single-game in program history, and the 43 total runs scored for the weekend is the most in a series since 2004.

Javier Rosales and Jonathon Long each recorded their first career multi-HR games for the Dirtbags to become the first LBSU duo to hit back-to-back home runs since May 5, 2015. Rosales hit a grand slam, scored four runs and had five RBI. Long also had three hits with four runs scored and four RBI plus a pair of walks.

The Dirtbags return to Bohl Diamond at Blair Field this weekend to host UC Santa Barbara.

Women’s Water Polo

LBSU (2-7, 1-3) picked up its first conference win in its last regular season game last week at Ken Lindgren Aquatics Center. The Beach edged UC San Diego 15-14 while Elena Kotanchyan scored a team-high five goals in two games over the weekend.

Women’s Golf

At the Fresno State Classic last week, LBSU seniors Holland Shourds and Angelina Kim both finished in the Top 10 in the final tournament prior to the Big West Championship this week.

Men’s Golf

LBSU was led by Isaac Rodea at the Thunderbird Collegiate last week. He finished in the top 25 by breaking 70 in both rounds.

Track & Field

LBSU hosted the Long Beach Invitation last weekend at Jack Rose Track. Jason Smith and Clare Gibson won the two high jump competitions.

Beach Volleyball

LBSU (14-12) won both of its matches last week against Saint Katherine without dropping a set.

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JJ Fiddler
JJ Fiddler is an award-winning sportswriter and videographer who has been covering Southern California sports for multiple newspapers and websites since 2004. After attending Long Beach State and creating the first full sports page at the Union Weekly Newspaper, he has been exclusively covering Long Beach prep sports since 2007.
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