The562’s coverage of Long Beach State athletics for the 2024-25 season is sponsored by Marilyn Bohl.
It’s almost become routine for the No. 1 seeded Long Beach State men’s volleyball team to reach the NCAA Tournament Final Four. The Beach will be making their eighth Final Four appearance in the last nine seasons when they take on No. 5 Pepperdine today in the semifinals, and a win would send them to their third national championship appearance in the past four years.
Long Beach State is 46-43 all-time against Pepperdine but have won the last eight matchups. This time they face off in the semifinals of the NCAA Tournament in the Covelli Center of Columbus, Ohio, at 2pm pst.
“At the culmination of the season your goal is to play the best volleyball come the last weekend of the season,” said LBSU coach Alan Knipe. “Only four teams get a chance to do that and we take great pride in that. We don’t take it for granted and we look forward to getting out there and competing.”
The pair met in a regular-season matchup this past January, where Pepperdine gave the Beach their first five-set match of the season. Long Beach escaped with a win after a dominant 15-7 fifth set in what was an emotional game—the first match back in Malibu following the tragic fires that ravaged the California coastline.
As you can imagine, a lot has changed in the last four months. The Beach’s personnel have undergone some major changes since the regular-season matchup, due to both injuries and lineup adjustments. With Sotiris Siapanis and Daniil Hershtynovich sidelined, the Waves have yet to see new starters on the outside Nato Dickinson and Alex Kandev.
Both head coaches agree it won’t be the same match as the one in January, but they believe their teams have improved since then.
“It does feel like it’s been a while,” said Pepperdine coach Jonathan Winder of the first matchup. “I think both teams have lots of shifts in the lineups. They’ve got a few different players with some personnel changes on our end as well. I think that blocking and our defense is a little bit different and our serving has continued to improve in comparison to them. I think those are probably the two big things as a team.”
“I think both teams have gotten significantly better,” added Knipe. “If you look at both teams and look at the personnel on the court there are a lot of young guys out there regardless how much volleyball they’ve played, there’s still an adjustment to the current team you’re playing on and the brand of volleyball in the NCAA. I think that both teams are settling in and playing at a really good level right now.”
Long Beach is coming off of a dominant straight-set win against Fort Valley State in the quarterfinals, which is a good momentum gainer following their loss to Hawaii in the Big West championship. The Beach are now 28-3 for the season and have only taken losses to Hawaii and one to UC Irvine.
The Waves finished the season 21-9 and have been playing their best volleyball of late. Though they weren’t expected to make the NCAA Tournament, Pepperdine pulled off a huge upset against UCLA in the MPSF semifinals and then defeated USC in the championship to earn an automatic bid.
“They have a lot of momentum right now coming off of big wins in the tournament and conference, so we know they’re coming in with nothing to lose,” said LBSU setter Moni Nikolov. “They’re gonna go in and try and take us down.”
Nikolov was just named NCAA National Player of the Year last night and has brought international attention to the Beach this season with the way he’s contributed to the program. He has guided the Beach to a nation-best .399 attack percentage, and it’s been hard not to acknowledge the show put on each night the Beach takes the floor.
“They’re a great team and it’s hard sometimes not to get caught up in just watching them play because it’s fun to watch good volleyball,” said 1st Team AVCA All-American and Pepperdine outside Ryan Barnett. “I think that’s something we really need to channel in and focus is just staying on our side and playing our game, which is getting dirty and making good defensive plays and serving the ball hard and stuff like that. So I think just focusing on our side.”
The winner between Long Beach and Pepperdine will advance to the NCAA national championship and face the winner of UCLA and Hawaii, who play today at 5 pm pst. The championship will be on Monday at 4pm pst.
