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It may have happened well after midnight in the city, but the Long Beach State men’s volleyball team picked up a landmark win late Saturday night in Hawaii, where they claimed their first Big West Tournament Championship since 2018 with a huge four-set win over UC Irvine. The Beach dominated from the end line in a 25-23, 21-25, 25-16, 25-15 victory.
Next up for the Beach is the NCAA Tournament, where they have an automatic bid and are likely to be the top seed; the Beach will host the tourney April 30-May 4 at the Walter Pyramid, and the NCAA bracket is slated to be released at 1pm on Sunday afternoon.
The Beach and Anteaters split the first two sets and were in a back-and-forth third when Clarke Godbold stepped to the end line and seized control of the match, serving three consecutive aces to kickstart a 6-0 service run. That seemed to break Irvine’s back, and the Beach took the third and fourth sets by comfortable margins.
“We jumped on Clarke’s back in the serving and we didn’t look back, everybody caught fire at that point,” said LBSU coach Alan Knipe after the match. The Beach pride themselves on being able to win matches in a lot of different ways, and on Saturday it was by dominating with their serve, piling up 11 aces and 12 blocks, many of which came on out-of-system Irvine attacks that followed ripped Beach serves.
Godbold had 17 kills, five aces, five blocks, and four digs in a dominant effort, earning Tournament MVP honors. The Beach also got an outstanding effort from Sotiris Siapanis, who had 15 kills and 11 digs, and Skyler Varga, who had 11 kills, eight digs, and three blocks.
The Beach outhit the ‘Eaters .355 to .226, as setter Aidan Knipe piled up 43 assists.
The Beach (25-2) will await their NCAA Tournament fate on Sunday afternoon; we’ll have live updates on the website.
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