Long Beach State University Athletics
Long Beach State University
19-5, 14-4
UCLA
15-11, 10-8
UCLA Upsets Third-Ranked 49ers
3/29/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Volleyball
March 29, 2008
LONG BEACH, Calif. - Eighth-ranked UCLA received balanced scoring through its lineup and upset third-ranked Long Beach State 30-26, 30-23, 17-30, 30-28 on Saturday evening in a Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) match at the Walter Pyramid. The Bruins improved to 15-11 overall and 10-8 in the MPSF, while the 49ers fell into second place in the league standings at 14-4 and 19-5 overall.
Paul Lotman led the 49ers with 24 kills and seven digs while hitting .333, and Dean Bittner added 20 kills, hitting .310, but the 49ers came out slow in the first two games and couldn't catch up. The 49ers hit .321 in the match and out-blocked UCLA 9.0 to 4.0. The 49ers had 23 hitting errors though and 21 service errors.
UCLA, which hit .298 in the match, got 19 kills from Sean O'Malley to lead the Bruin offense. D.J. Stromath added 13 kills and Garrett Muagututia 12 for the Bruins. O'Malley hit .457 (19-3-36) in the match and Stromath .545 (13-1-22) to lead the UCLA offense. Setter Kevin Ker added 44 assists and a team-high nine digs.
UCLA came out strong to begin the match, jumping to a 16-9 lead in game one. The 49ers pulled to within 25-23, but UCLA scored two quick points to push the advantage to 27-23, before closing out the 30-26 win. The Bruins hit .375 (13-4-24) in the game as O'Malley recorded five kills. Game two was much of the same as UCLA led 16-13. Long Beach pulled to within 21-20, but the Bruins closed out the game with a 9-3 run to win 30-23. Once again O'Malley led the way with seven kills as UCLA hit .417 (18-3-36).
Long Beach showed signs of life winning game three easily 30-17. The 49ers jumped out 8-3 and 14-7 as they hit .643 (19-1-28) in the game. Lotman led the 49ers with eight kills and the 49ers limited the Bruins to a .114 (12-8-35) percentage.
Game four saw UCLA take a 17-13 lead before four quick 49er points tied the game at 17-17. Long Beach led 26-25, but the Bruins strung together three points to push the lead to 28-26. A Lotman kill cut the deficit to 29-28, but the Bruins Stromath put away the final ball in the 30-28 win.
The 49ers hit the road next week as they travel to Pacific (April 4) and Stanford (April 5).
