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After No. 2 Long Beach State men’s volleyball lost its first set in six matches, the team made quick work of the Cal Baptist by winning three straight sets Wednesday to beat the Lancers 24-26, 25-12, 25-14, 25-19 at the Walter Pyramid.

After a sluggish start, the 49ers quickly regained their composure between the first and second sets.

“I think we were pushing it a little bit — pressing sometimes,” head coach Alan Knipe said. “You know, a technique sport like volleyball is very much like golf — when you press a little too much you don’t get the results you want. You’ve got to be in your routine and we weren’t really in that for a while, but once we got into it we played pretty well.”

LBSU dominated the rest of the match in straight sets, with a 25-12 win in the second, 25-14 in the third and won the match in the fourth set 25-19.

“They came out, played strong and took us by surprise,,we just had to come back and respond to it,” DeFalco said. “It was just about getting back to the basics for us.”

The team is crediting their win streak on the extra time they are spending in the gym, watching videos of their games and staying consistent with their preparation before each game.

“It’s mainly because of how hard the guys are working, you know, in the gym they are doing a heck of a job,” Knipe said. “We’ve identified a few things that we thought were really important at the beginning of the year that we were struggling at and the guys are doing a good job of coming in and getting some extra video on it and being focused on it.”

The 49ers will next host USC Friday at 7 p.m. The last time the two teams faced each other on Jan. 11, the Trojans beat LBSU 3-1.

“You know, we are going to treat them like how we should treat them,” Tuaniga said. “They are going to be a really good team, they got us early on in the season so there is a little fire underneath us to beat them. But, again, we are going to work really hard tomorrow in practice and focus on some of their key guys.”

With a seven more conference games on its schedule, Tuaniga believes the key to LBSU success down the stretch is to stay close “like a family.”

“Every team in the MPSF is really good and there have been some pretty big upsets and some pretty big wins for every team,” Tuaniga said. “So, we just need to put our focus into each team for the week and take them one at a time and really fight with an all-out effort in practices.”  

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