The562’s coverage of Long Beach State athletics for the 2025-26 season is sponsored by Marilyn Bohl.
All Long Beach State needed to end their nation-leading losing streak was a team that’s a non-NCAA Division 1 school.
The Beach snapped their 19-game slide with a 87-54 win over Nobel University Wednesday night.
“I’m overly excited for our team to come out here and get a win,” Long Beach State Chris Acker said. “Nobel came out, they played extremely hard, especially in the first half. They really challenged us in our discipline in a lot of areas.”
For the first five minutes, it looked like LBSU (1-4) was on their way to a close battle, but with a rotation that saw 12 athletes see time the Beach pulled away in the second half to win their first game since January.
“It was great just to see the guys connect and come together and how happy we were in the locker room,” Cole Farrell said. “Guys really finally brought in and we finally got the win. Hopefully we can just keep this going.”
LBSU has had a lot of close contests during their 19-game skid including Sunday where the they had an opportunity to tie the game with second remaining against Illinois State.
With a clear size advantage, the Beach shook off some early jitters as in the second half after only leading 31-24. Acker went with a deep rotation and all 12 players scored and played minutes as LBSU outscored the Knights 56-30 to pull away.
It was a good test run for the Beach as guys were able to show what they can do early in the year before the coaching staff starts dialing in who will be the main pieces of the rotation.
“I told them we’re as deep as they play hard,” Acker said. “So, if everybody’s playing hard. They should be exhausted, two and a half minutes into the game and they should be asking for a sub. We’re steadily trying to capture those moments.”
The Beach had four athletes score in double figures with Petar Majstorovic who led the team with 12. Gavin Sykes, Leopold Lavillain and Christian Jones each had 10.
Sykes committed to the Beach last year, and he said he was watching the team as they struggled toward the end of last season, but he was happy to help the team get over the hump and get a win.
“It’s great to see,” Sykes said after the win. “Last year, I was signed and I was watching every game and they were just fighting through it. Each game is getting better and better and better and better, and we just keep listening to coach, he keeps guiding us through.”
