The562’s coverage of Long Beach State athletics for the 2025-26 season is sponsored by Marilyn Bohl.
Friday night was just about as clean a win as the No. 3 Long Beach State men’s volleyball team has seen all season. With under two weeks until the Big West Tournament, the Beach opened their series against No. 8 UC Santa Barbara at the LBS Financial Credit Union Pyramid and dominated in all facets of the game, earning a sweep, 25-20, 25-19, 25-20.
“It feels nice to get out of here in an hour and a half with a three-set sweep against Santa Barbara. We give a lot of credit to their coaching staff and their guys for how they play the game,” said LBSU coach Nick MacRae. “We won nearly every statistical category, but the challenge is going up to their place tomorrow and responding, doing it all over again.”
The Beach outhit Santa Barbara .304 while holding the Gauchos to sub .100 hitting at .092. LBSU edged them 3-2 in the aces category and out-blocked them 11-3, while Santa Barbara committed 37 total errors to the Beach’s 26.
UC Santa Barbara was playing without a handful of players, most notably top outside hitter George Bruening, who had yet to miss a game until Friday and leads the team in kills by a wide margin. Additionally, the Gauchos pulled starting setter Cole Schobel after LBSU took a two-set lead.
The Beach also used plenty of subs on the other side, taking the opportunity to work in a number of players returning from injury. Starting setter Jake Pazanti made his return after a two-week recovery alongside opposite Wojciech Gajek, with the pair subbing in midway through each set and playing roughly half the match.
“As we say, there are 17 guys on our roster, and it’s going to take all 17,” MacRae said. “As you’ve seen, every week we’ve had someone crossed off who hasn’t been available to play, but now we’re a team that’s primed with everyone healthy, healed, and ready to play our best volleyball yet.”
LBSU was dominant at the net on Friday, led by a productive night from middle blockers Jackson Cryst and Ben Braun, who were each in on a match-high five blocks while combining for all of the Beach’s aces. Cryst also had five kills on .333 hitting, while Braun filled up the stat sheet with a pair of aces, two assists and one dig.
“The entire week, the coaching staff has really been prepping us,” Braun said. “We’ve been known to have some high hands, and this weekend it’s been big for us to get across the net as fast as possible. It’s not just us, too, we’ve got everyone out there pressing. When our offense dips a little our blocking steps up, and I think that’s a natural wave of our team.”
The Beach were gifted 17 total errors from Santa Barbara in the first set and recorded 5.5 of their 13 total team blocks to take a quick one-set lead. LBSU then used a 6–1 run, fueled by five Gaucho errors early in the second set, to open another sizable lead and put Santa Barbara on sweep watch.
LBSU followed that up with its most efficient set of the night, hitting .353 while adding 4.5 more team blocks. The Beach pulled away on a four-point run midway through the set, which included two aces from Braun to help give the Beach some extra cushion.
Senior outside hitter Skyler Varga led the way at the pins for the Beach, racking up a match-high 12 kills on .280 hitting. Senior setter Island Doty finished with a match-high 18 assists, while Pazanti had 10. Libero Kellen Larson added a match-high 11 digs to anchor the Beach’s back line.
“I think that even though we played well, we’ll still respond,” said Larson. “Our goal is to play even better tomorrow.”
The Beach will continue their series with night two on the road at UC Santa Barbara tomorrow before wrapping up the regular season with a series against UC Irvine next week. The Big West Tournament is set for April 23–25 at the Bren Events Center at UC Irvine, and the NCAA Tournament will begin May 7 at Pauley Pavilion at UCLA.
