All signs point up for the Long Beach State men’s volleyball team as it enters the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Tournament Thursday evening.
The regular season MPSF champions host the tournament and are on a four-match winning streak, with all four victories coming on the road. A noteworthy fact for MPSF title contenders: The last four league champions have ended up winning the NCAA Tournament.
But in contention with all of those fortunes is an upstart team from Malibu. No. 5-ranked Pepperdine is LBSU’s semifinal opponent at the Walter Pyramid and, at 14-10, isn’t going to be intimidated by a pro-49er crowd.
The Waves have already entered a hostile environment and won an MPSF Tournament match, knocking off host and No. 6-ranked UCLA in four games to advance to the semifinal round. Pepperdine has also scored a 3-0 victory over the 49ers this season (Feb. 13).
The 49ers’ win over the Waves was a 3-0 sweep at the Walter Pyramid on Jan. 30, and Thursday’s matchup expects to be the ultimate rubber match for both teams.
LBSU looked to be in a major slump after dropping consecutive matches to UC Irvine and UCLA, but turned back any doubters with wins at Pacific, Stanford, UC Santa Barbara and CS Northridge, the latter giving The Beach the regular season title.
“We’ve come a long way from that game [against Pepperdine], physically and mentally,” senior middle blocker Fletcher Anderson said. “Our turnaround was realizing it was coming down to playoff time and realizing that everything matters – that all the work we’ve put in so far is not for nothing.”
Coming off a tough 11-17 season last year, the 49ers returned with a stronger commitment to work ethic and team unity, something that head coach Alan Knipe said increased as the season progressed.
“I think they’ve reached the recipe for their success – unselfishness and their ability to play as hard,” Knipe said. “We have a big picture goal – we want to play long into the end of the season.”
Pepperdine didn’t have All-American junior outside hitter Paul Carroll for eight games this season due to a fractured hand, going 3-5 without him. But when Carroll returned to the team in time to deal LBSU its first loss of the season, Pepperdine seemingly turned the corner and ended up winning six of its last eight matches. Carroll managed to still lead the team in kills with 399 and an average of 6.54 kills per game. The Waves are evidently a far more effective team with Carroll on the floor, something that doesn’t surprise Knipe.
“He’s an international volleyball player,” Knipe said. “He can handle the load and he gives the team confidence. I think with Carroll out there, we have to give him different looks. Give him passing problems and force him to make great plays.”
Pepperdine may be thinking the same way toward Lotman. The MPSF Player of the Year managed to lead the team with 16 kills in the last meeting at Firestone Fieldhouse in Malibu, despite missing playing time due to a capped tooth he suffered after colliding with freshman setter and MPSF Freshman of the Year Mike Klipsch. Lotman leads the team with 560 kills and is third in the nation with 5.49 kills per game. The senior’s 60 service aces this season set a new LBSU single-season high and his 0.588 aces per game leads the country.
The battle between the two star outside hitters should be a thriller at the Walter Pyramid, but two freshmen could also make an impact on the match. Pepperdine’s Cory Riecks is second on the team with 279 kills, but outside hitter Josh Riley has made serious strides in 14 matches for the 49ers this season, nine of them as a starter. Riley’s 2.17 kills per game is fourth on the team, as he will be looked upon to support sophomore opposite Dean Bittner, sophomore middle blocker Dan Alexander and Anderson in the 49ers’ attack.
“If we can serve them off the net, then they have less options to set,” said Klipsch, who led the nation with 13.83 assists per game. “[Then], we can just block balls to the ground like we did the first time we played them.”
Blocking, moreover, could be what LBSU needs to overwhelm the Waves much like it did in the January victory. Knipe noted differences in the team’s approach toward Pepperdine in the two matches.
“In the first match, a lot of it was dictated by our hitting errors; we were one-dimensional on offense,” Knipe said. “In the second match, I thought that both teams were a little further along, a little more crisp. Both of them were unique.”
LBSU had 17.5 team blocks (three triple blocks) in the win over Pepperdine at the Walter Pyramid, but only seven team blocks in the loss to Pepperdine. The Waves were held to a woeful -.065 hitting percentage at the Walter Pyramid, but rose to .483 in the second match.
