LBSU hosts BYU on Thursday and Friday in MPSF action
3/30/2010 12:00:00 AM | Men's Volleyball
March 30, 2010
Complete Release in PDF Format 
49ERS ON THE WEB: All of Long Beach State's home matches and a handful of its road matches will be broadcast live on the internet at longbeachstate.com. Shane Nolan handles play-by-play duties.
LONG BEACH STATE HOSTS NO. 3 BYU IN PAIR OF MPSF MATCHES: Long Beach State faces another crucial pair of matches this week as The Beach entertains No. 3 BYU on Thursday and Friday at the Walter Pyramid. With three weeks and six matches left in the regular season, the 49ers sit in a tie for seventh place with USC. LBSU and USC lead UC Santa Barbara and UC Irvine by two games in the loss column. The 49ers and USC are also just two games behind third-place BYU and fourth-place Cal State Northridge in the loss column.
BITTNER HOPING FOR REPEAT OF JUNIOR YEAR BYU PERFORMANCE: Senior Dean Bittner hopes this year's meeting with BYU is nearly as good as last year's, at least individually. Bittner's 42 kills in a 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 a Long Beach State record 58 kills against BYU on March 19, 1999. Bittner's effort is 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. Last year's effort finished off a big weekend for the junior from Lakewood. He had 27 kills and a .321 hitting percentage in the first meeting between the two, also a five-set loss.
BITTNER THIRD ON ALL-TIME KILLS AND MATCHES WITH 20+ KILLS LISTS AT LBSU, ALSO RANKS FOURTH IN SERVICE ACES: Dean Bittner moved into third all-time in career kills and matches with at least 20 kills in Long Beach State's match against Penn State on March 13. The 49er opposite passed 49er great Matt Kerins (1987-90) on the kills list, while becoming just the fourth 49er to ever total 1,700 kills during his career. Then against Hawaii he moved into sole possession of third in career matches with at least 20 kills. He moved past Tom Hoff (1995-96) on the list.
Bittner has 1,766 career kills and needs 48 kills the rest of the season to pass Brett Winslow (1988-91) for second in career kills at Long Beach State. Brent Hilliard (1990-93) is the all-time leader with 3,034 kills, over 1,200 more kills than Winslow. Bittner needs one more match with at least 20 kills to tie David McKienzie (1998-01) for second on the 20+ kills list. Hilliard is also the all-time leader on that list with 89 matches with 20-or-more kills.
Bittner also ranks fourth all-time in service aces at Long Beach State. He needs 16 more to pass Hilliard for third and 19 to pass Paul Lotman (2005-08) for second all-time. Scott Touzinsky (2001-04) is the all-time leader with 158 service aces.
BITTNER'S 38 KILLS AGAINST UC SANTA BARBARA MARKED SIXTH TIME IN CAREER, AND SECOND THIS SEASON, HE HAS HAD 30 OR MORE KILLS IN A MATCH: Despite Long Beach State's loss to UC San Barbara on February 12, Dean Bittner had one of the best matches of his career. The senior finished with a season-high 38 kills and a .320 hitting percentage in leading the 49ers in a heart-breaking five-game loss. The 38 kills were the second-most in his four-year career, trailing only the 42 kills he had as a junior at BYU last year.
Earlier this season, Bittner had a 30-kill effort in the season opener against California Baptist. Bittner needs two more matches with 30 kills to tie Martin Wagner (94, 96) for the fifth most 30-kill matches in a career at Long Beach State.
BITTNER EARNS NATIONAL AND MPSF PLAYER OF THE WEEK HONORS: Dean Bittner was named the Sports Imports/AVCA Men's Division I-II National Player of the Week on Jan. 25, as well as the MPSF Molten Co-Player of the Week, after leading the 49ers to a split of their matches. Bittner recorded back-to-back 20-kill outings, while only playing in six games. He started things off by notching 20 kills on .356 hitting with six digs, three blocks and an ace in the 49ers loss to top-ranked USC. He followed by hitting a blistering .833 - a career-high - while registering 20 kills, three digs, one block and one ace in LBSU's sweep of then-No. 7 Pepperdine. For the week, Bittner averaged 6.66 kills, 1.50 digs and hit an efficient .522.
BITTNER'S FOURTH CAREER NATIONAL P.O.W. HONOR IS TIED FOR THE MOST IN LBSU HISTORY: Dean Bittner's national player of the week honor was the fourth of his career, with two coming in 2008, one in 2009 and one this season. His four national honors are tied for the most in school history with David McKienzie who won two in 1999 and two in 2001. Tyler Hildebrand has three national weekly honors, while Tom Hoff, Duncan Budinger and Paul Lotman have two each.
PESTOLESI NAMED NATIONAL AND MPSF PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Tommy Pestolesi was named the Sports Imports/AVCA Division I-II Men's National Player of the Week after igniting his team to a pair of key Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) triumphs Feb. 24 and Feb. 26. He also earned co-MPSF Player of the Week honors for his efforts. In the 49ers' first match, a hard-fought 3-2 win over then-No. 11 UC Irvine, Pestolesi narrowly missed a double-double, smashing 24 kills (.488) while chipping in nine digs, one block and one ace. In LBSU's next match, a 3-0 blanking of then-No. 3 UCLA, the senior came away with 15 kills, five digs and one block on .431 hitting. For the week, Pestolesi hit an efficient .431, while averaging 4.88 kills and 1.75 digs per game.
ALEXANDER MOVING UP CAREER CHARTS IN FOUR CATEGORIES: Dan Alexander is moving up the career charts in four separate career record lists--blocks, block assists, matches with at least 10 blocks, and service aces. Alexander moved into fifth all-time in blocks passing David Lee (2001-04) in the home win over Pacific. He now has 451 career blocks and needs 61 more to pass Matt Prosser (1998-01) for fourth. Alexander is just the eighth player in school history to record 400 blocks. He is currently fourth in block assists with 430 and needs 13 more to pass Robert Kutsch (1987-90) for third. He also has seven career matches with at least 10 blocks, which ranks fifth all-time. He needs one more to tie Matt Prosser (1998-01) for fourth on the list. Alexander is fifth all-time in service aces with 106. He is 11 behind teammate Dean Bittner.
EATON MOVES INTO SEVENTH IN CAREER ASSISTS: Conor Eaton has returned to the starting lineup during his senior season and as a result is climing the all-time assists list at LBSU. The Dana Point, Calif., product is seventh on the all-time list at LBSU with 2,342 assists and needs 63 more to pass Ryan Mennealy (1988-90) for sixth. Eaton started his freshman season and handed out 1,194 assists before combining for 127 assists as a sophomore and junior while backing up Mike Klipsch. This season, Eaton beat out Klipsch to return to the starting lineup and has tallied 1,021 assists.
KLIPSCH GETS CAREER ASSIST NUMBER 3,000; SITS FIFTH IN CAREER ASSISTS AT LBSU: Junior Mike Klipsch is in the top five in career assists at Long Beach State. The junior from St. Louis, Mo., has 3,055 career assists and needs 72 assists to pass Steve Walker (1995-96) for fourth on the all-time list. Klipsch also became also became just the fifth LBSU player to ever record 3,000 assists. He is currently second on the depth chart behind Conor Eaton at setter and has only played sparingly since starting the season opener against California Baptist.
