Long Beach State University Athletics
Beach men visit USC and Pepperdine in crucial MPSF matches
3/25/2009 12:00:00 AM | Men's Volleyball
March 25, 2009
LONG BEACH, Calif. -
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BEACH TRAVELS TO VISIT PAIR OF TOP 5 TEAMS IN CRUCIAL MPSF ACTION: Long Beach State hits the road for a pair of crucial Mountain Pacific Sports Federation matches this week. The Beach visits No. 4 USC on Thursday and then faces No. 3 Pepperdine Saturday night. The Waves are tied for first place in the MPSF, while the Trojans are in fourth place.
Both matches are the back half of a home-and-home series with the 49ers losing a pair of five-set matches in early March. The Trojans knocked off LBSU 29-31, 30-24, 23-30, 30-23, 15-13 in the Walter Pyramid on March 4 despite 21 kills each from Dean Bittner and Josh Riley. Pepperdine beat Long Beach State 21-30, 24-30, 32-30, 30-26, 15-12 two days later despite a then career-high 33 kills from Bittner and a career-best 74 assists by Mike Klipsch.
BITTNER 42 KILLS AGAINST BYU THE MOST BY A BEACH PLAYER SINCE SPORT SWITCHED TO RALLY SCORING IN 2001: Dean Bittner's 42 kills in Saturday night's 30-18, 29-31, 30-24, 33-35, 15-13 loss at BYU was one of the most dominating performances in Long Beach State history despite the Beach losing the match.
Bittner's 42 kills were the most by a Long Beach State player since David McKenzie had Long Beach State record 58 kills against BYU on March 19, 1999. Bittner's effort was one of only 22 40-kill matches in LBSU history, and the first 40-kill match at Long Beach State since Scott Touzinsky had 40 against BYU on Jan. 30, 2004. McKenzie has the only other 40-kill match since 2000 at LBSU when he had 40 against UCLA on Jan. 26, 2001.
Bittner pounded the Cougars with a hitting percentage of .478 and had nearly 60 percent of the team's kills in the match. The 42 kills bested his previous career high of 33 kills. Nobody on The Beach team had more than nine kills other than Bittner and nobody hit higher than .222 besides Bittner. The effort finished off a big weekend for the junior from Lakewood. He had 27 kills and a .321 hitting percentage in Friday night's five-set loss.
Bittner's big match is the third this year by an LBSU player that ranks among the all-time highs at the school. Dustin Watten had 22 digs against Stanford, tied for the fourth most in school history, and Dan Alexander had 14 block assists against UCLA, tied for the most in school history.
