Long Beach State men’s volleyball has once again found themselves earning Big West conference weekly honors over the past weekend.
Freshman outside hitter Alex Nikolov and his teammate sophomore middle blocker Simon Torwie both earned player conference players of the week.
Alex Nikolov
The phenom from Sofia, Bulgaria is back at it again this week as Nikolov has won his eighth conference freshman player of the week. This is also Nikolov’s fourth straight freshman of the week award as he is playing lights out for The Beach.
Last weekend Long Beach went 1-1 in a two-game series against UC San Diego, one at home and the other on the road in LA Jolla, CA.
Nikolov had a total of 12 kills with an attack percentage of .611. The following day Nikolov was on another scoring frenzy as he had a total of 17 kills against the Tritons with an attack percentage of .324. He also had a total of eight digs and would have a career night in aces as he reached six for the first time ever.
Nikolov is now third in the LBSU men’s volleyball program for the most aces ever served in a single match. As he wins his eighth Big West Player of the week award, there is a very strong chance that he could win conference freshman player of the year as he is leading the conference in kills (139) and aces (16).
Simon Torwie
Torwie joined Nikolov this past week as Big West defensive player of the week as the sophomore from Frankfurt, Germany had a total of 15 blocks over the weekend. This is the first-ever Big West player of the week award for Torwie.
Torwie had a season-high of eight kills on Friday night while averaging a .545 attack percentage. The next day he would go on and achieve a career-high of eight blocks with three digs, three kills and three aces.
Torwie is normally an opposite hitter, but the 6’10 player received the nod to start as the middle front blocker against UC San Diego over the weekend.