The No. 10-ranked Long Beach State men’s volleyball team upset No. 1 UCLA in a hard fought five-set rollercoaster of a match, 26-16, 25-18, 20-25, 25-27, 15-9, Tuesday night at the Walter Pyramid.
LBSU (6-6, 2-5 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) was able to seal just their second win in MPSF play.
Despite the ‘Niners lackluster record in MPSF play, they always play the Bruins tough. The last five times that these schools have met, the matches have gone to five sets with LBSU only winning two.
Freshman John La Rusch led the ‘Niners with a career-high and LBSU season high 21 kills on .325 hitting in just his second start of the season. La Rusch’s start came due to senior Jim Baughman hitting only .090 in LBSU’s last two games.
“We just felt like we’ve got to make some changes,” said head coach Andy Read. “We just thought we were going to get some things from John that he showed at Pepperdine.”
Jeremy Casebeer led the UCLA (12-2, 7-1 MPSF) attack with 13 kills on just .226 hitting.
“He had a little bit of an off night and probably that off night was caused by what we were doing,” said Read.
Sophomore Taylor Crabb notched his third straight double-double with 16 kills and 11 digs. Crabb also picked up two service aces to tie a career best for the seventh time.
LBSU’s 63 kills and 58 assists were season highs for The Beach as they continue to surprise opponents that take them lightly.
LBSU came out of the gate firing on all cylinders to meet their highly touted opponents with a 3-0 run including a triple block by senior Brad Hemmerling, senior Ryan Meehan, and La Rusch on UCLA’s best attacker Casebeer.
Three of Casebeer’s six errors on the night occurred in the first set allowing LBSU to coast to an easy 1-0 lead.
The second set saw more dominance on the LBSU side of the ball. Sophomore Connor Olbright hammered down back-to-back service aces to put the ‘Niners up 12-6 early on.
UCLA was unable to piece together a run longer than a couple of points and were finally put down with a block from Jeff Ornee and La Rusch.
The match seemed like it was going to be an easy sweep for LBSU after going up 2-0, but UCLA showed why they’re ranked No. 1 in the nation.
After being held to 10 kills in the second set the UCLA offense sparked and found the court 17 times to take away LBSU’s chances of a sweep.
The match began to slip away from LBSU entering into the fourth set.
UCLA took an early four-point lead to try and silence the LBSU attack.
Down 12-16 in the middle of the fourth the ‘Niners looked to the most consistent member of the team, Crabb. Crabb forced down back-to-back kills to put LBSU within two. LBSU followed Crabb by blocking two Bruin attacks to tie up the set and force a UCLA timeout.
UCLA responded with its own 3-0 run and took back the lead.
Meehan was hurt during the run and had to be subbed out for Colten Echave, who had not played during the entire 2011 season.
Despite a late run that again tied the score the ‘Niners committed too many errors and played themselves into a fifth set.
The fifth set went back and forth between the two until back-to-back kills by Ornee and Crabb gave LBSU a 5-3 lead.
LBSU’s three-point lead would hold until a three straight kills by La Rusch sealed a seemingly insurmountable peak for the Bruins giving the ‘Niners their long awaited second MPSF win.
LBSU must now prepare for No. 15 UC Santa Barbara who comes to the Walter Pyramid on Friday. First serve is scheduled for 7 p.m.
