The562’s coverage of Long Beach State athletics for the 2025-26 season is sponsored by Marilyn Bohl.
No moment was too big for Long Beach State on Saturday.
You couldn’t have scripted a more perfect scene for the Big West men’s volleyball championship than the battle the Beach ensued against longtime rival Hawai’i at the Bren Events Center, and the match had every element of a movie, including a fairytale ending.
Featuring two of the top three teams in the nation, the match felt destined for five sets, but it took Long Beach State’s resilience to fight off five Hawai’i match points in the fourth set to force one final race to 15.
Behind freshman opposite Wojciech Gajek’s all-world performance, the Beach played its best volleyball of the season with a conference championship on the line, outlasting the Rainbow Warriors in the fifth set to earn an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament with a 20-25, 27-25, 22-25, 30-28, 15-11 win.
“Anytime you have a championship go five sets, I think that’s a huge credit to our sport. From there, it’s about these guys—all 17,” credited LBSU coach Nick MacRae. “I’m just excited and blessed that we get to keep playing more volleyball, and our season’s not done yet. We’re going to celebrate for 24 hours, then come back on Monday and do the same old song and dance we’ve done all year going into the NCAA tournament.”
Gajek was named Big West Championship Most Valuable Player after the match, recording new career highs in both kills and blocks. The freshman racked up a monstrous 27 kills on .489 hitting—the most efficient mark of any pin hitter on the night—while adding six blocks and three aces.
“I realized pretty quickly that it was my night and I just kept feasting no matter what set it was,” Gajek said. “I think that was the nicest game we’ve played all year and the level was just really high. We have multiple guys on this team that deserve a shoutout. Our season is not over yet and we’re excited for more to come.”
Gajek’s most heroic stretch came during the Beach’s desperation at the end of the fourth set, as the freshman kept his team alive with four straight kills on four consecutive Hawai’i match points. Fellow freshman Jackson Cryst then followed with back-to-back aces to send the match to a fifth set, where Gajek accounted for over a third of the Beach’s fifth-set points including the kill at match point.
“Big shoutout to Jackson at the end of the fourth set. It’s a shoutout to everyone, and to [setter Jake Pazanti] for keeping feeding me at the end of that set,” Gajek said. “We managed to keep that set close because we were down 23-21 at one point, but we just stayed consistent and managed to win the set before taking over in the fifth.”
Although the Beach was already likely to receive a bid into the NCAA’s new 12-team bracket, the win on Saturday clinches an automatic berth as the Big West’s representative. The official bracket will be released Sunday at 1 pm, with four regional sites set to be announced to host the opening rounds next weekend.
The Beach opened the first set of Saturday’s match on a roll, going on a 4-1 run before Hawai’i came back to tie it, and the teams found themselves knotted up eight times through the bulk of the set. Despite committing more total errors, the Rainbow Warriors were more efficient with 15 kills on .294 hitting to Long Beach’s nine on .160, closing out the set on a 5-1 run to take a one-set lead.
LBSU then found itself on the other end of the close-out in set two despite trailing for nearly the entire set. The Beach took its first lead since the first half of the set at set point, 24-23, earning all three of the frame’s set points en route to a tight 27-25 win to knot the match at a set apiece.
The Beach opened the third set with a five-point lead in a set that was defined by runs and won by Hawai’i. Gajek led the Beach on a 5-1 run with a kill and an ace to take a 19-17 lead at one point in the set, but the Rainbow Warriors responded with an 8-3 run to close out the set and regain the lead.
MacRae then worked senior Dane Hillis into the lineup in the final two sets as an adjustment on the Beach’s serve receive, which proved to be a worthwhile move. Hillis played the opening portion of the fourth set before the Beach fought off Hawai’i’s five match points to force a fifth set.
“We all knew what we needed to do when we were down 2-1, and that was it. We just needed to execute, limit their runs and keep our runs longer,” said senior Skyler Varga, who finished with 16 kills. “I thought we did a good job of that in that fourth set to come back and win. It really was a team effort and an LB Grit kind of night.”
The Beach used a 6-1 run to open up a sizable lead in the fifth set and led by as many as six in what ended as a dominant final frame. LBSU played four match points before eventually sealing it on its fifth with a Gajek kill.
The Beach had four different players finish with five or more blocks, including a game-high nine from Cryst to go with his three aces. Varga and Ben Braun each had five blocks, while Gajek had six. Pazanti racked up 52 assists.
The win comes after Hawai’i defeated LBSU in each of the pair’s regular-season matches this season to open Big West play. It also marks a year since the Rainbow Warriors defeated the Beach in last year’s Big West Championship, adding extra meaning for returning players like Varga.
“It’s a little bit of revenge from last year,” he said. “We kept that in the back of the mind for sure going into this match. It was just a complete team effort. We keep saying that it takes all 17 and we proved that tonight, and it feels good to come out with the W especially in the Big West finals.”
The562 will have live coverage as the NCAA bracket is released Sunday, including information on LBSU’s upcoming matchup, with the Beach potentially in position to earn one of the top four seeds, which would host regional sites. When asked why the Beach deserves one of those spots, Hillis summed it up quickly.
“We just won the hardest conference in men’s volleyball,” Hillis said. “I think that proves enough.”
