Long Beach State Downs Cal Poly, 3-1, on Senior Night

Saturday, November 16

Long Beach, Calif.

7:00 PM

Long Beach State University

12-15,9-6Big West

Cal Poly

18-8,11-3Big West

Cal Poly

Long Beach State

YiZhi Xue, Kjersti Norveel, Hailey Harward

Photo by: Christian Millan

11/16/2019 11:20:00 PM | Women's Volleyball

Box Score Photo Gallery

The Beach turned in another solid team performance to win their fourth-straight match

By: Lindy Zamora, Associate Athletic Communications Director

Box Score (PDF) | Photo Gallery

LONG BEACH, Calif. – Long Beach State extended its winning streak to four as the Beach took down Cal Poly, 3-1 [25-18, 23-25, 25-17, 25-19] on Saturday night inside the Walter Pyramid on Senior Night. Each one of the three Beach seniors contributed in the team victory as Kjersti Norveel recorded a new career-high in kills, Hailey Harward notched a season-best in aces, and YiZhi Xue hit over .500 in the win.

The Beach (12-15, 9-6 Big West) recorded a season-high 13.0 total team blocks, while hitting .280 in the four-set win as they limited the Mustangs (18-8, 11-3 Big West) to just .142 hitting.

Norveel led the way for the Beach with a career-high 13 kills on a .591 attack percentage. She, along with freshman Katie Kennedy, led the blocking defense as she tied her career-best with eight. The eight blocks for Kennedy is a new career-high for the product out of Hood River, Ore.

Norveel was just one of three players to reach double-figures for Long Beach State as fellow senior Xue added 12 on a .526 attack percentage. Xue also contributed five blocks, four digs, and one ace. Leading the scoring for LBSU was freshman Tia Chavira who got the start at outside and paced the Beach with 16 kills, a new career-best.

Sophomore setter Carly Aigner-Swesey registered another solid outing as she paced the offense distributing 45 assists, while helping the defensive effort with eight digs and one block.

Defensively, Harward turned in another double-digit dig performance as she finished the match with a team-leading 15 digs. Harward was exceptional from the service line tallying a season-high four aces to bring her career total to 114, just one shy of breaking into the top-10 career record book at LBSU and tying current assistant coach Sabrina Hernandez's career mark of 115.

Long Beach State started the match off hot as the Beach used a 5-0 run, highlighted by back-to-back aces from Harward to open the first set with a 5-2 lead. LBSU held the lead the rest of the frame as the Beach jumped out in front 12-7, forcing a timeout to be called by the Mustangs, after another 5-1 run. The Beach would hit .500 (15-3-24) in the game to win the first set, 25-18.

The conference foes battled early on in the second set and with the game tied at 8-8, Cal Poly went up 11-9 on kills by Maia Dvoracek and Meredith Phillips. The Mustangs extended their lead up to eight (20-12) as the game looked to be out of reach for
LBSU. However, the Beach refused to back down and turned in a gritty performance rattling off seven-straight points to make it a one-point game (22-21). Despite, dropping the second set, 25-23, to Cal Poly, the Beach's 7-0 run gave the team momentum heading into the third set with the match tied at one set apiece.

The Beach used that momentum to take a 14-11 lead over the Mustangs on a 6-0 run capped by a kill from Xue. Cal Poly managed to come back and even the score at 15-all, but Long Beach State was unfazed as the hosts took an 18-16 lead before closing the frame on a 7-1 run to win, 25-17.

With LBSU leading two sets to one, Cal Poly started the fourth set off with a 6-3 lead as the Beach called a timeout to regroup. The break in action worked as Long Beach State fought back and used a 4-0 run to go up 12-11 on the Mustangs. After Cal Poly tied the game at 13-all, the Beach used another four unanswered points to go up 17-13 on another ace by Harward. LBSU led the rest of the way as the Beach didn't let the Mustangs come any closer than two points (21-19), before closing the set and match on a 4-0 run to win 25-19 on a block assists by Norveel and Kennedy.

Cal Poly received a strong showing from Dvoracek who finished the match with 20 kills with a .317 attack percentage. She also added five digs, three blocks, two aces, and an assist.

Long Beach State closes out the regular-season on the road as the Beach take on No. 18 Hawaii in Honolulu on Friday, Nov. 22. First serve is set for 9 p.m. (PT) / 7 p.m. (HT).