HONOLULU, Hawaii — The third-seeded Long Beach State men’s volleyball team swept sixth-seeded UC Irvine, 25-22, 25-19, 25-21, in a quarterfinal of the Big West Conference Tournament on Thursday night at the Stan Sheriff Center.

Long Beach (7-4) advances to the semifinals, where it will face No. 2 seed UC Santa Barbara (13-4) on Friday at 7:30 p.m. PT. LBSU and UCSB split their two regular-season matches, each winning in four sets on their home courts on consecutive days last month.

Unbeaten top seed Hawaii (15-0) will meet fourth-seeded UC San Diego (4-12) in Friday’s second semifinal, with the championship match scheduled for Saturday.

LBSU hit an impressive .432 in the match, with Spencer Olivier logging 18 kills and Ethan Siegfried adding 10. Setter Aidan Knipe had 42 assists as every Long Beach player hit above .300 for the match.

Defensively, libero Mason Briggs had 10 digs, while Shane Holdaway had four blocks and Simon Andersen and Siegfried added three blocks apiece.

Opposite hitter Alexandre Nsakanda led UCI (2-14) with 11 kills, while outside hitter Joel Schneidmiller added seven kills and three digs. Setter Dylan Zhai had 21 assists and five digs.

The teams traded points early and battled through 10 ties in the opening set before Long Beach went on a 5-0 run to open a 15-10 advantage. Long Beach never trailed again in the opening set, and took control early in an uneventful second set.

UCI took an early lead to start the third set, but Long Beach used a 3-0 run to gain a 10-9 lead and pushed the margin to 14-11 before the Anteaters rallied to tie the score at 21-all. Following a timeout, Long Beach regrouped and closed out the match on a 4-0 run.

from Irvine Business Signs https://ift.tt/3sSCo1X
via Irvine Sign Company

signsanaheim

See Full Bio