By snoadmin
The third-ranked Long Beach State men’s volleyball team will look to continue its ascent up the national rankings when it plays No. 5 Pepperdine and No. 8 Southern California this week after upsetting No. 1 Brigham Young over the weekend.
Upsets are common in college sports, but more often than not, teams fail to back up their big wins with solid victories afterward. LBSU head coach Alan Knipe said he knows that his team can’t get caught up in the big win if it wants to keep succeeding.
“We play top-10 teams every week,” he said. “We can’t get too high.”
That being said, the 49ers’ upset of BYU was no small feat. The ‘Niners (8-3, 6-2 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) battled through the adversity of a relentless BYU crowd of close to 3,400 all the while facing a strong Cougar team that continued to play some of its best volleyball during the loss.
The winning recipe for LBSU came with concise passing and a combined 40 kills from juniors Dalton Ammerman and Taylor Crabb. Knipe said that he hopes his team will use the big win in Utah as a vehicle to show what it’s capable of.
“More than anything, [the win] validates to the guys that what they’re doing in the gym is good,” Knipe said.
The 49ers will look to continue their success this week when they take on No. 5 Pepperdine on Wednesday.
Knipe said that the key to defeating the Waves (4-3, 4-3 MPSF) is as simple as having good practices.
“I really don’t think at this point there’s any magic with what we’re trying to do,” he said. “For us to feel good going into that match on Wednesday, we have to feel like coming out of our practices on Monday and Tuesday we improved on our side.”
The MPSF is no stranger to dealing out high-quality matchups week after week, as the 49ers will play two ranked opponents in the next three days. LBSU will return to the Walter Pyramid Friday night to take on USC.
“If we can keep going in with that mindset that we can make incremental improvements between each match regardless of the opponent, we have a better chance of the wins and losses taking care of themselves,” Knipe said.
The 49ers will play Pepperdine at 7 p.m. on Wednesday and USC on Friday at the same time. The matches start a string of four straight home games for LBSU.
