The562’s coverage of Long Beach State athletics for the 2025-26 season is sponsored by Marilyn Bohl.
Long Beach State’s influence on international volleyball will be hard to miss during the 2026 Volleyball Nations League season.
There will be a collection of 11 former and incoming Beach athletes competing for five different countries this summer, as each country battles for a spot in the final rounds.
The United States roster features three familiar faces in former NCAA champions TJ DeFalco, Kyle Ensing and Mason Briggs.
DeFalco, a two-time AVCA National Player of the Year and two-time NCAA champion at Long Beach State, is now starring professionally for Japan’s JTEKT Stings while continuing to be a cornerstone of Team USA. Ensing, another key piece of the Beach’s 2018 and 2019 national title teams, recently helped Poland’s Aluron CMC Warta Zawiercie capture the PlusLiga championship and remains a regular contributor for the U.S. national team. Briggs just wrapped up his professional season in France where he competed for Nice in the Ligue Masculine A.
After the first week of action, the United States currently sits in third place.
Bulgaria features brothers Alex and Moni Nikolov who took college volleyball by storm becoming the first and second freshmen in history to earn AVCA National Player of the Year honors. After their Bulgaria national team stint this summer, Moni will be joining his brother in Italy to play for Cucine Lube Civitanova.
While the brothers each earned POY honors, Moni took the nation by storm winning the national title with the Beach before departing to start his professional career.
That duo is joined by Lazar Bouchkov, who was a member of LBSU’s 2025 championship team.
Canada boasts three athletes on its VNL roster.
Skyler Varga and Daniil Hershtynovich both helped Long Beach State win the 2025 national championship and are continuing their rise through Canada’s national team system. Varga was a first-team All-American his senior season and just signed his first professional contract to play in Japan for the Toray Arrows Shizuoka.
They’re joined by incoming transfer Owen Weekes, who will suit up for the Beach this fall. Weekes’ selection gives Long Beach State another international-caliber player arriving in the program before the 2027 season.
Germany’s representative is middle blocker Simon Torwie, whose size and blocking ability have made him a standout at both the collegiate and international levels. Torwie has spent several years in Germany’s national team pipeline and continues to be one of the country’s top young middle blockers.
Poland rounds out the list with outside hitter Wojciech Gajek.
Gajek quickly became a Long Beach State favorite, becoming a reliable option opposite of Varga as the Beach made its return to the NCAA Final Four. Gajek announced after the season that he would be leaving to start his professional career. He will be competing in France with Le Plessis-Robinson Volley-Ball.
The VNL will run until the end of July with the finals being hosted in Ningbo Beilun, China.
