Long Beach State and the defending national champion UCLA Bruins were widely recognized as the top two teams in the nation all year long, and now they face off in the national championship game for the right to sit atop the volleyball world.
Both teams are coming off of exhausting semi-final matches that went to five sets, but they both dug deep and left it all out on the floor.
You could see the exhaustion in the faces and body language of The Beach players in the final set, but they managed to pulled off an upset that will be remembered forever.
The two faced off twice this season, each taking a 3-1 win on their respective home courts with The Beach winning the latter matchup, which should give it some confidence going into Saturday’s match.
They have also met twice in the national championship with LBSU taking the most recent matchup in 2018 and UCLA taking the duel in 1970.
However, all past matchups get thrown out of the window when the stakes are this high, and at the beginning of the game, the score is still 0-0.
The 25-5 Bruins defeated No. 4 UCI in their semi-final matchup and are led by the balanced hitting attack of redshirt senior outside hitter Cooper Robinson and senior outside hitter Ethan Champlin.
The game of volleyball takes place between the boundary lines on the court, but there is a battle taking place on the sidelines as well.
LBSU head coach Alan Knipe and UCLA head coach John Speraw are the last two coaches to be at the helm of the U.S. Men’s National Team with Knipe coaching in 2012 in London and Speraw taking over for him in the past two Summer Olympics as well as the upcoming Olympics in Paris.
Saturday’s national championship is setting up to be one for the ages as The Beach tries to reach the summit of the volleyball world on their home court and knock off the defending national champion UCLA Bruins.
The game will take place at the Walter Pyramid at 2:10 p.m. on Saturday and be nationally broadcasted on ESPN.