Two words sum up the Long Beach State men’s volleyball team’s 1991 national championship season: school record.
LBSU has captured four NCAA national championships, three of which have come from the women’s volleyball teams. That leaves just one left over for all men’s sports.
All thanks to that 1991 team, which will be honored at the Walter Pyramid on Friday night before the current 49ers face No. 1 USC at 7 p.m. (School record count: 1)
The four-set championship victory was over USC, which defeated LBSU three times earlier that season.
“No way any team was good enough to beat us four times in one season, not that season,” said team member Alan Knipe, who is now the current 49ers head coach but on sabbatical to coach the U.S. National Team for the 2012 London Olympics.
The 49ers have made it to the NCAA finals three times since, but have lost all three.
In the 40-plus seasons that LBSU has competed in men’s volleyball, the 49ers had more than 30 wins just once — the 1991 season. (School record count: 2)
Those ‘Niners won often and convincingly. LBSU’s 19 three-set sweeps in 1991 were, you’ve probably already guessed, a school record. (School record count: 3)
The Beach was all about offense in 1991. Then-sophomore Brent Hilliard led the team in kills, kill average, and total attempts. All three were Hilliard’s career single-season highs, putting him atop the LBSU record books in each of the three categories. (School record count: 6)
“[Hilliard] was arguably the best collegiate volleyball player of all-time,” Knipe said.
On the season the 49ers finished with 2,855 kills and a kill average of 22.3 — both of which are school records. (School record count: 8)
Jason Stimpfig and Brett Schroeder, the team’s setters that season, would help the 49ers to 2,652 assists. That is 300 more than the second-place 1993 team. (School record count: 9)
Nine school records set by one team.
Usually, national championships are reserved for larger schools like perennial winners UCLA and BYU, but for one season, one moment things turned around for LBSU.
The 49ers started the season off with an 11-match win streak until running into Hawaii for the first loss of the season. LBSU would only lose to one other team the entirety of the season: USC.
During the entirety of the regular season, LBSU was unable to overcome the Men of Troy. Not even Knipe’s Western Intercollegiate Volleyball Association Player of the Week performance was enough to push the 49ers past the Trojans.
With thoughts of a national championship in mind, the ‘Niners bounced back from their loss and entered the WIVA conference tournament confident. LBSU swept two of its three matches in the tournament, taking out UC Santa Barbara and San Diego State.
In the tournament finals, LBSU faced arguably its toughest challenge of the postseason. UCLA took the 49ers the distance to five sets, but that was not enough to derail a fairytale season.
The 1991 Final Four was held in Hawaii where Hilliard, Knipe and the rest of the 49ers would face Penn State in their first match-up. Again, LBSU proved to be untouchable, sweeping the Nittany Lions in three straight.
The 49ers true test was next.
LBSU had been dominated by USC during the regular season and would have to face them one last time before bringing home LBSU’s first men’s national championship.
Hilliard was named NCAA Final Four MVP. Stimpfig, Knipe, and Brett Winslow were named to the All-NCAA Final Four team. Both Volleyball Magazine and the American Volleyball Coaches Association named head coach Ray Ratelle the Coach of the Year.
Sixteen years later, the names of seven members of the 1991 National Championship team can be found on the 49ers Wall of Honor. Hilliard, Knipe, Stimpfig, and Winslow were inducted in 2007. Matt Lyles and Mike D’Alessandro joined Ratelle the next year.
Though the 1991 team remains the only one with a National Championship, they stand as a reminder that schools like LBSU can win it all.
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