The562’s coverage of Long Beach State athletics for the 2025-26 season is sponsored by Marilyn Bohl.
It was an eventful evening at the LBS Financial Credit Pyramid on Saturday as Long Beach State hosted Penn State in a battle between two top-25 teams in the country.
Before the game, the Beach took a moment to honor Penn State coach Mark Pavlik who will be retiring at the end of the season after 32 years at the helm.
Long Beach State then honored one of their own in Paul Lotman who became the fourth men’s volleyball athlete to have a banner put up in the pyramid in his honor after a storied career that included being the 2008 AVCA Men’s Co-Player of the Year as an outside hitter for the Beach.
Once the ceremony was over Long Beach State got off to a slow start, but turned things around as they swept the Nittany Lions 26-24, 25-18, 25-19.
“Our guys did a good job celebrating the noise and then trying to go out and execute at a high level,” Long Beach State coach Nick MacRae said. “Stats aside, errors aside, it wasn’t our cleanest match of volleyball. We gave 10, if not more, points per set away. We’re going to go back and I know all of our guys feel it. Even though we’re winning 25-18, I think you saw some reactionary guys on the court expressing that we could be winning 25-10.”
While the Beach had their second-worst hitting percentage of the year, LBSU leaned on one of the areas where they’re the best teams in the country – serving.
With 13 aces, tying for third most this season, the Beach responded whenever it seemed like the match was starting to get away from them. Freshman Jackson Cryst led the team with five while Braedon Marquadt, Wojciech Gajek and Alex Kandev each had two.
“We’re always trying to flex from the service line,” MacRae said. “I didn’t even realize we had 13 aces. What we’ve been trying to emphasize is staying aggressive. If we score the first point – even if it’s an ace – we’re trying to go after a second point.”
Marquadt performance was one that MacRae pointed to as being a performance the team as the sophomore hit .571 with four kills on seven swings.
“I’m a very confident player,” Marquadt said. “I train every single day at the highest extent in the Long Beach gym. It’s very rewarding to see all my work come out and be placed on the court today.”
It was all LBSU (12-2) after the first set as the Beach was able to shake off some of the early set jitters and started to attack Penn State.
In the second set, Beach hit a match-best .333 as Jake Pazanti finished the night with a match-high 27 assists. Pazanti credited nice passing but also the job the middles were able to do throughout the match.
“Being able to set them from anywhere on the court and trust them to score or get it past the block that’s huge,” Panzanti said. “ In my opinion we have the best middle blocker depth in the country.”
Long Beach State will wrap up non-conference play next Thursday and Friday when they have back-to-back contests against Jessup before opening up Big West play versus Hawai’i the following week.
