Long Beach State University Athletics
Beach opens MPSF Tournament with quarterfinal match at Pepperdine
4/21/2009 12:00:00 AM | Men's Volleyball
April 21, 2009
LONG BEACH, Calif. -
Complete Release in PDF Format 
BEACH ON THE INTERNET: Saturday night's Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Tournament quarterfinal game can be heard live on the internet at www.longbeachstate.com. Sports information director Todd Miles will handle play-by-play duties.
BEACH OPENS MPSF TOURNAMENT PLAY AT PEPPERDINE: Long Beach State opens MPSF Tournament play Saturday at Pepperdine and will look to snap a five-match losing streak to the the Waves. The Beach dropped both matches to Pepperdine this year and lost its last three to the Waves last season including a loss in the MPSF Tournament and a loss in the NCAA Final Four. LBSU's last win over Pepperine came in the teams' first meeting last season.
In the 49ers two losses this season they hit .306 as a team, but allowed the Waves to hit .332. Dean Bittner paced The Beach with 59 kills and a .363 hitting percentage on 113 swings in the two matches. Nobody else had more than 23 kills for LBSU.
WATTEN FIRST BEACH PLAYER TO HAVE 20 DIGS IN TWO MATCHES IN THE SAME SEASON: Dustin Watten has done something no other 49er has ever done. Watten had 20 digs against Cal State Northridge to mark the second time he had 20 digs in a match this season. He had 22 at Stanford earlier this season. Watten's two 20-dig matches mark the first time in school history a 49er has had multiple 20-dig matches in the same season. Watten is also just one of three Beach players, joining Rick Arce (1985-86) and Jason Stimpfig (1990-93), to have multiple 20-dig matches in their careers.
WATTEN OWNS THREE RECORDS AT LBSU WHILE RANKING AMONG ALL-TIME LEADERS IN CAREER DIGS: Senior Dustin Watten has set three records during his career at Long Beach State. The Long Beach native set the single-season digs record at The Beach this year and now has 342 digs, 60 more than Stimpfig's old record of 282 in 1993. Watten is also the career and season record holder for most matches with 10 or more digs. He has 22 matches with 10-plus digs this year breaking the old record of 15 by Mark Kerins in 1990, while also passing Kerins (1987-90) for the career mark with 42 matches with 10 or more digs.
Watten moved into third place in career digs at UCSD last Friday, passing Stimpfig (1990-93) for third all-time with 799. Zach Small (1990-93) holds the career record with 886.
Click on attached pdf for match notes.
