By snoadmin
The Long Beach State women’s volleyball team had quite a debut Friday night, as it squared off against No. 15 University of San Diego in the Gold Mine. Standout middle blockers Alexis Crimes and Michaela Hasalikova were effective. Freshman outside hitter Ashley Lee made an impression that could mean bigger things for the future of the volleyball team.
Despite the team’s efforts, it could not prevent a 3-0 sweep at the kills and digs of the Toreros, 30-28, 30-27 and 30-14.
Crimes, entering her senior season, was a force to be reckoned with throughout the game, tallying 16 kills with six assists. Crimes was dominant throughout the first and second games, attacking at will to keep LBSU in contention to win both games.
However, the Toreros’ 52 digs seemingly took LBSU out of its game. Libero Andrea Csaszi led the way with 14 digs for the Toreros (1-0), followed by Amy DeGroot with 10. LBSU (0-1) had 37 digs, 13 of them coming from senior defensive specialist Talaya Whitfield.
Hasalikova, who played limited time in all three games, had seven kills and three blocks. Lee also had seven kills, along with three assists and four digs.
Consistent teamwork was another advantage for the Toreros, which had 52 assists compared to LBSU’s 38. However, senior setter Dyanne Lawlor stood out far more than anyone else in that category, tallying 29 for the match-up.
LBSU came out firing on all cylinders in the first game, forcing several Torero miscues and took an early 16-9 lead. However, the Toreros continued to rally back, attacking the LBSU sidelines to tie the game at 26. The first game remained intense, but the Toreros barely escaped the first game by one point.
The tempo slowly began to shift into the favor of the Toreros in the second game, as the two teams battled intensely. Crimes and Hasalikova showed the dominance that garnered conference honors by registering several kills and key blocks, but the Toreros dealt kills from almost everyone on the court, most coming from DeGroot, Abrahamson, and outside hitter Ali Troost. The three combined for 39 kills in three games.
The third game was a blowout for LBSU, as the Toreros took a 16-6 lead and never looked back. Mistakes began to signal the end of any run LBSU attempted to make, and the Toreros reached 20 points while LBSU had only seven. Head coach Brian Gimmillaro looked utterly dismayed at the performance of his team, calling it one of the hardest losses of his 22-year coaching career.
“”The worse we played, the better they played,” Gimmillaro said. “We had a lot of seniors that didn’t play well.”
Gimmillaro, who was in New York to attend a funeral, arrived in Long Beach two hours before the game started. He said he felt LBSU was in control of the game and should have won, but the team instead allowed the Toreros to come from an early deficit to dominate the rest of the match-up. Gimmillaro was critical of Crimes’s play tonight and said she was “playing out of her game.”
“She [Crimes] was all over the place,” Gimmillaro said.
Gimmillaro said he was overly concerned about the decision-making of LBSU throughout the three games.
“I thought they [LBSU] tried so hard to win that they just didn’t play,” Gimmillaro said. “I did not know why so many people got out of their game.”
Lee certainly persevered through a tough outing to record seven kills, three assists and four digs. She said she felt nervous at the beginning of the match-up, but got comfortable as the game progressed.
“Once we lost a couple points in a row, it just killed us,” Lee said. “We really need to pick it up. Practice as we play.”
Nothing will get easier for LBSU tomorrow, as it hosts No. 2 Stanford in the Gold Mine. Gimmillaro’s message for the next game was direct and simple:
“Just do what you do, and execute what you do.”
