IRVINE – The Long Beach State women’s volleyball team along with fans of The Beach made the trip down the 405 Freeway to see them sweep UC Irvine, a match-up apart of “The Black & Blue Rivalry.”
Fans of The Beach were treated to a dominant match as LBSU dropped the Anteaters to an overall record of (6-14). The first leg of rivalry week goes The Beach’s way with their next match coming against Fullerton on Saturday.
Eager to continue its winning ways, LBSU engaged in a back-and-forth battle with the Anteaters to open up set number one. Neither team was able to create any true separation on the scoreboard until about midway through the set when The Beach went on a 4-0 run.
Leading the way with 12 kills was graduate student outside/opposite hitter Katie Kennedy, two of which came during the aforementioned run that flipped the momentum of the and resulted in a 25-21 score in favor of The Beach.
“Each team fights, and we felt that, especially after some big wins and tough losses,” Kennedy said. “A big focus the last two weeks was playing with a target on our back in a good way, and using that as fuel to push through these matches.”
The second set featured more of Kennedy, along with the help of redshirt sophomore setter Zayna Meyer who tallied 16 of her team-leading 35 assists in the set. Meyer, coming off back-to-back Big West Setter of the Week honors, is now second in the conference in assists.
The Beach would again scrape by the Anteaters in this set by a score of 25-20, pulling closer to their third straight sweep.
“Teams are not going to go, ‘this is the same old Long Beach.’ This team has some upside, we’ve also played not our best, and we haven’t had it all come together, head coach Tyler Hildebrand said.
“That combination of them respecting us a lot, they know what we’re capable of, but they know we’re beatable.”
The night wrapped up with LBSU’s most convincing set victory, maintaining full control throughout, with the biggest lead mounting to double digits at 10.
Not even UCI’s rowdy student section or band courtside could rattle The Beach to the slightest as they would take the set 25-17.
The team has a day off between their next match-up on Saturday night at the Walter Pyramid against rival Cal State Fullerton, who will enter with a (0-9) conference record, and (1-17) overall.
“We are going to prepare the same way. We’re going to keep our starters low on jumps tomorrow, go through Fullerton’s rotations and go through what they do differently in our gym,” Hildebrand said.