No. 7 Long Beach State men’s volleyball team beat the University of Hawaii in four sets Friday night at the Walter Pyramid.
The 26-30, 30-23, 30-24, 30-21 victory in front of 1,022 spectators improved the 49ers to 7-5 overall with a 6-3 record in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation.
Long Beach was led by sophomore outside hitter Josh Riley and junior opposite Dean Bittner, who finished 19 and 15 kills, respectively.
Hawaii (3-8, 2-6 MPSF) came out with a different lineup that included three new starters. The change in personnel had an impact for the Warriors as they took the first set.
The ‘Niners appeared flat from the start and Hawaii took advantage of nine LBSU nine errors, which resulted in a.122 hitting percentage in the first set.
Head coach Alan Knipe mentioned the team’s inability to hit a better percentage in the opening frame.
“I thought Dean (Bittner) struggled a little bit. He had a great game yesterday but didn’t quite have an ideal start tonight,” Knipe said.
The second set was an improvement as The Beach used a team effort to get back in the match. They hit .536 and only had one error as freshman outside hitter Kyle McElderry had six of his nine kills to help even the game at one set apiece.
Set three featured some controversy that resulted in the 49ers receiving a point after Hawaii outside hitter Steven Grgas argued a call and was given a yellow card. This made the score 23-18 and Hawaii could not recover as a Bittner kill closed the set.
In the final set, the ‘Niners scored eight straight points to go up 15-6 and survived a comeback attempt by the Warriors to complete the two-day sweep.
Senior libero Dustin Watten had a match-high 18 digs and sophomore setter Mike Klipsch chipped in with 48 assists and nine digs for LBSU to fall just short of a double-double.
Freshman middle blocker Jim Baughman also contributed with 10 kills and 11 block assists for the 49ers.
The 49ers’ next match will be at UCLA on Feb. 25 at 7 p.m.
