The562’s coverage of Long Beach State athletics for the 2025-26 season is sponsored by Marilyn Bohl.
Photo courtesy of Ethan Cohen.
Simply put, the Long Beach State men’s volleyball team is exactly where it belongs.
The No. 2-ranked Beach stepped into Pauley Pavilion on Friday night with a chance to avenge their only loss of the season against UCLA in the second of two matchups between the teams. And while that opportunity presented itself after regrouping from a lopsided first set, Long Beach State ultimately proved a step behind top-ranked UCLA in a 15–25, 25–23, 27–25, 24–26 loss.
After the match, LBSU head coach Nick MacRae reiterated the importance of his team’s response to the 15–25 first set loss. The Beach answered by taking the second set before pushing each of the final two sets to the wire in a pair of two-point losses.
“We’re going to hang our hat on that response,” MacRae said. “We got punched in the first set and lost by a handful, but we’ve learned from big Final Four and championship matches that the most important thing in that moment is taking the next set, and they responded. We had two deuce sets, and in those moments if we have a chance, we’re absolutely going to take the strategic risk to try and hold the advantage. You saw it in both sets, and it just didn’t go our way.”
It’s hard not to glance at the box score without noticing the Beach’s 51 total errors compared to UCLA’s 32. Meanwhile, the Bruins nearly doubled up LBSU offensively, hitting .447 on the night to the Beach’s .277. In the first set alone UCLA hit a blistering .625 and never trailed, while Long Beach State managed just .211.
LBSU’s best set came in the second, even after the Beach trailed by as many as four at 10–14. The Beach responded with an 8-1 run to take their largest lead of the set at three points after an ace from Alex Kandev. Kandev then knocked a kill over the triple block at set point to tie the match at a set apiece.
The two teams were knotted up for nearly the entire third set before LBSU earned a set point at 24–23 following a kill from Skyler Varga. After a pair of Bruin points, the Beach then fought off a UCLA set point to tie it again, but a Cameron Thorne kill followed by a Thorne and Sean Kelly block at set point gave UCLA the one-set lead.
Thorne finished with a massive night for UCLA in the middle, which proved to be an area of struggle for the Beach. UCLA setter Andrew Rowan set the middle nearly a third of the time, and for good reason, as Thorne finished with 13 kills on an impressive .812 hitting percentage. Fellow middle Micah Wong-Diallo added six kills on .333 hitting.
“Last time they didn’t set the quicks, and obviously this time they trained to set the quicks on us,” MacRae said of the middle. “We’ll make a couple of adjustments and have our own counter moves moving forward. When you play back-to-back series, it’s not always going to feel the same, and when we play them a third time, it’s not going to look the same.”
LBSU dug itself another four-point hole in the fourth set before battling back to tie the frame at 21–21. From there, a service error and a Varga kill gave the Beach a 23–22 lead before back-to-back kills from UCLA’s Zach Rama. The Beach fought off one set point before a pair of errors gave UCLA the win.
The last time LBSU lost consecutive regular-season matches to UCLA was in 2023, when the Bruins went on to win the national championship. For first-year coach MacRae, there’s no added stress after the loss.
“When we lose, of course we have a high attention to detail, but we don’t overly react, and I think that’s the big thing,” he said. “Part of trust-building is hanging your hat on your plan. We have two matches next week, so we’ll continue to flex our depth there. But what you saw tonight was leaning on our LB trust and us saying that in those moments, we’re going to ride it out together.”
The senior captain Varga led the Beach with 18 kills on .389 hitting while being set a team-high 36 times. The nation’s leader in aces per set struggled behind the line with just one ace on the night while committing six service errors.
Opposite Wojciech Gajek got the start on Friday and had 13 kills while hitting just .103. Kandev finished with eight kills on a flat .000. Ben Braun had eight kills down the middle on a game-high .889 hitting percentage. Freshman Jake Pazanti racked up 46 assists for the Beach.
LBSU will likely remain at the No. 2 spot in the nation in the next AVCA coaches poll with their only two losses of the season coming to No. 1 UCLA. The Beach will return to their two-game series format next week with a pair of matches against Concordia University Irvine on Friday and Saturday.
