By Davis Ramage
No.7 ranked Long Beach State women’s beach volleyball team dominated this weekend at the LBSU tournament at Long Beach City College and came out victorious in all four games.
Texas was the first team that The Beach took down on the weekend, and won easily 5-0.
The Beach showed great resilience as the unranked Texas Longhorns looked like they were going to give The Beach trouble at points, but perseverance from duos like junior Haley Carrington and redshirt freshman Olivia Narancich overcame the Longhorns’ upset bid.
Sophomores Julia Westby and Savannah Standage flew through their match. At the same time, redshirt freshman Christine Deroos and junior Megan Widener dropped their first set but would come back to put the exclamation point on the sweep of the Longhorns.
The Beach’s second opponent on Friday was the No.12 Arizona State Sun Devils, who proved to be a much more formidable opponent.
Beach volleyball's junior Natalie Glenn dove for the ball after it was spiked by CSUN. Glenn and her partner would win 21-14 and 21-17 as part of a 5-0 win over CSUN at Long Beach City College on Saturday. Photo credit: Devin Malast
The Sun Devils gave The Beach a run for its money taking two points, but LBSU could win three matches and top the Sun Devils 3-2.
The Carrington/Narancich and Standage/Westby duos lost their matches with Carrington and Narancich losing by two points in both sets, but The Beach did enough to hold off the Sun Devils.
Saturday featured matches against Nebraska and Cal State Northridge and Long Beach State shrugged them both off with 5-0 wins against both teams.
The Beach did not drop a set in the first four games against Nebraska, but the duo of freshman Sammy Okano and redshirt junior Utah transfer Abby Karich dropped their second set and were able to secure the third set and pick up what would be both of their first wins for The Beach.
Long Beach State beach volleyball redshirt junior Abby Karich passing to her teammate freshman Sammy Okano. The duo would pick up their first win for The Beach against Nebraska on Saturday at Long Beach City College. Photo credit: Devin Malast
Karich and Okano’s win secured the 5-0 sweep of the Nebraska Cornhuskers.
CSUN, the second opponent of the day, only took one set away from Long Beach State.
That duo that dropped a set consisted of redshirt freshman Gabby Reinking and freshman Jaylen Jordan, who came back in the third set and followed the path of Karich and Okano and picked up their first Beach win.
An impressive performance from The Beach improves their record to 14-2 and they will head to Sacramento this weekend for The Big West Challenge where they will meet all of its conference foes.
