By Davis Ramage
No.1 seed Long Beach State men’s volleyball (27-3) will take on the No. 8-seeded Fort Valley State Wildcats (18-9) in the 2025 NCAA Men’s Volleyball Championship quarterfinals on Thursday in Columbus, Ohio.
The two teams met earlier this season on Jan. 31 in Reno, Nevada, in the Silver State Showdown. It ended the same way as The Beach’s first 23 games did, with a win.
Four Beach players combined for nine aces, and The Beach are no strangers to domination from the service line as they are first in the country in aces per set, with 2.21, and total aces, with 221.
“We’re a great serving team, I think it’s important that we serve really well and win the serve and pass battle because if we do that, we should be going in the right direction,” LBSU redshirt junior opposite hitter Skyler Varga said.
Fort Valley went 12-0 in regular season Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference matches, earned the No. 1 seed in the SIAC conference tournament, and won it to qualify for the NCAA Tournament.
Former LBSU men’s volleyball player TJ DeFalco clutches the championship trophy outside an East Long Beach bar after the 2018 NCAA Championship win over UCLA. Top-ranked LBSU is hoping to bring home another championship from the NCAA tournament that begins May 8 in Columbus, Ohio. Photo credit: Barbara Kingsley-Wilson
The Wildcats’ offensive attack is led by junior outside hitter Isaiah Fedd, who is 14th in the country with 3.84 kills per set.
The game plan heading into Thursday’s match is one you’d expect from a team that has been No.1 in the country since the second week of the season.
“We don’t have to recreate the wheel. What we have to do is focus on the style of volleyball we like to play and then have really good execution and composure with playing that style of volleyball,” LBSU head coach Alan Knipe said.
If The Beach advance to the championship match, which is set for Monday, May 12, that will be their third game in six days, which can take a toll both physically and mentally.
The Beach have played three matches in a week this season, and Knipe said that was on purpose to prepare for the possibility of having to do it in the NCAA Tournament.
“The mindset is to take care of business as sufficiently as we possibly can, but we’re conditioned, our strength and conditioning coach does a great job,” Knipe said. “The guys are dialed.”
Knipe also said that because of the lack of rest between matches, there might be some more playing time for some of the bench players, but they are ready to step up.
Fort Valley’s men’s volleyball program was inaugurated in 2022 and made its first appearance in the NCAA Tournament last year, where it was also the No. 8 seed, but was dumped from the tournament by No. 1 UCLA.
The Beach hope to repeat what the Bruins did on Thursday, May 8 at 2 p.m.
“Obviously we want to move to the next round, but we can’t move to the next round unless we win this first game,” Varga said.
