The Long Beach State men’s volleyball team stepped up its game on Wednesday night, as the team battled back from a two-game deficit to upset No. 5 UCLA, the defending national champions, 3-2 (30-23, 24-30, 26-30, 30-23, 16-14) at The Walter Pyramid.
“I wasn’t really too concerned about UCLA; I was concerned about us,” LBSU head coach Alan Knipe said. “We can’t control some of the things the Bruins are going to do. We’re going to worry about our system and being aggressive.”
The 49er middle blockers played big on offense, with Dean Bittner and Teddy Liles putting in two of the biggest performances of the night. Bittner played on the opposite side instead of his usual middle blocking position, and had only two days’ practice.
Two days was enough for Bitter, who notched a career-high 21 kills, second only to UCLA’s Steve Klosterman, this week’s Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Player of the Week. Klosterman finished the night with 27 kills.
“I think it’s an unbelievable performance by Dean Bittner,” Knipe said.
Liles had 14 kills and a .632 scoring percentage, the highest of the night. Lotman, fourth in the conference in kills per game with a 4.68 average, posted his third double-double of the season with 17 kills and 10 digs. Lotman also served four aces.
“Teddy has been playing like that for the last couple weeks,” Knipe said. “I wasn’t surprised, and I’m never surprised when Paul Lotman plays well.”
The 49ers’ only downfall of the night was service errors. Serving was strong in the first two games, with only one serve into the net each game, but the 49ers gave the Bruins several points in the last three games on service errors. LBSU gave up five in the third game, and six each in the fourth and fifth games. Almost half of UCLA’s points in game five came from LBSU serving errors.
“In my opinion, it came down to some young players for us serving in some crunch-time situations, and they weren’t aggressive enough,” Knipe said. “Was it perfect? No, but we got a win and we can always go back and work on that stuff.”
Norm Hutton, one of LBSU’s and the conference’s best hitters, saw very little action in only two games. The same went for libero Dustin Watten, currently second in the conference in digs per game. Watten came in only for one serve.
“We tried some new guys, like we’ve been doing a lot this season,” Knipe said. “They looked pretty good, there’s no doubt.”
Knipe said this win proved how far this young group has come as a team in the season. Impressed by their ability to come from behind, the head coach also said this game showed how much they have improved in high-pressure situations.
“The thing that was nice about it was that we had some moments where we gave up some points. Earlier in the year that would have cost us the match,” Knipe said. “I thought we were mentally tough enough to come back and give ourselves a chance to win.”
The No. 14 ranked 49ers, now 7-8 overall, 4-7 in the conference, will take on UC Irvine in the Gold Mine on Saturday at 7 p.m.
