By Davis Ramage
After falling to Hawai’i in the Big West Championship, Long Beach State women’s beach volleyball did not earn an automatic bid, but their 28-9 record was enough to earn them an at-large bid to the 2024 NCAA Beach Volleyball Championship.
Long Beach State defeating the top-seeded Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Mustangs, The Beach fell to Hawai’i in the Big West Championship for the fourth time in eight years.
The sophomore duos of Malia Gementera and Taylor Hagenah plus Savannah Standage and Julia Westby won all three games they played each. They only dropped one set between them at the Big West Championships.
The aforementioned duos are two of three LBSU duos to win 21 or more games with Gementera and Hagenah going 27-10 on the season and Standage and Westby going 21-6.
Junior Abby Karich serves against Loyola Marymount University in the Long Beach Invitational at the LBCC Beach Volleyball Complex on March 10. The No. 10 seeded Beach face No. 7 Cal in the first round of the NCAA beach volleyball championship in Gulf Shores, Al on Friday, May 3 at noon PST. Photo credit: Devin Malast
Long Beach State drew the No. 7 seeded University of California Golden Bears in the first round and the two teams should be familiar with each other as they matched up in the first round of last year’s tournament.
Cal came out on top 3-2 in last year’s matchup, but Gementera and Hagenah were paired together and won their game in two sets, something that the two will hope to repeat this year.
The Golden Bears comes into this matchup with a record of 21-13 and were the No. 2 seed in the Pac-12 tournament, but were upset by the No. 6 Arizona State Sun Devils in the consolation bracket.
This season, Cal’s best pair by record was the pair of sophomore Portia Sherman and junior Ella Dreibholz, who posted a record of 18-4 as a duo.
Sherman and sophomore Jenna Colligan have found recent success as they were Cal’s only pair to win all their games in the Pac-12 tournament and have gone 7-0 on the season as a duo.
Cal was knocked out by UCLA in the second round of last year’s tournament and now UCLA is slated to be the next opponent for whoever wins the first-round matchup this year.
Heavy rain and winds were a factor when The Beach and the Golden Bears matched up last year in Gulf Shores, Alabama, but the forecast shows no sign of rain as the two teams will face again on Friday, May 3 at noon PST on ESPNU in Gulf Shores.
