No. 1 Long Beach State Downs No. 4 UCLA in Straight Sets

Saturday, February 16

Long Beach, Calif.

7:00 PM

Long Beach State University

13-0

UCLA

10-4

UCLA

Long Beach State

Photo by: John Fajardo

2/17/2019 12:05:00 AM | Men's Volleyball

Box Score

The Beach hit .404 on the night to roll past the Bruins for their 13th straight victory

By: Lindy Zamora, Associate Athletic Communications Director

WATCH: Hear what head coach Alan Knipe had to say about the team's 3-0 sweep of No. 4 UCLA #GoBeach #LBNation

https://t.co/oXqGvuGU3V via @LBSUAthletics
— Long Beach State Men's VB (@lbsumvb) February 17, 2019

Box Score (PDF) | Play-By-Play (PDF)

Photo Gallery

LONG BEACH, Calif. – The top-ranked Long Beach State men's volleyball team set a new program record on Saturday night as the Beach swept No. 4 UCLA, 3-0 [25-20, 25-17, 25-19] to win their 33rd straight home contest surpassing the previous mark of 32 which spanned four seasons (1998-2001). With the victory, LBSU has not lost a match inside the Walter Pyramid since March 26, 2016.

The Beach (13-0) were dominant in the contest as they hit .404, converting 30 kills on 57 swings while committing just seven errors. Despite collecting four more kills than the Beach, the Bruins (10-4) were forced into 15 miscues, which led to a .260 attack percentage.

Senior setter Josh Tuaniga paced the offense dishing out 26 assists to go along with three aces, two digs, one kill and one block. Tuangia spread the ball around as Kyle Ensing led the way with eight kills, while Louis Richard, TJ DeFalco and Nick Amado each contributed six.

Ensing hit .438 (8-1-16) in the match, while Richard led the Beach with a career-high .625 attack percentage (6-1-8). Richard also added three blocks as he turned in a solid effort on both sides of the ball. Amado hit .556 as he connected on 6-of-9 swings with just one error.

In addition to tallying six kills, DeFalco was impressive from the end line serving up five aces to tie his season-high. He accounted for nearly half of the Beach's 12 aces to bring his career total to 151. He is just seven aces shy of tying the Long Beach State program record (158) which was set by current LBSU assistant coach Scott Touzinsky who played at the Beach from 2001-04.

TJ DeFalco serves up his 5th ace of the match as LBSU leads 16-7 forcing a UCLA timeout #GoBeach pic.twitter.com/4pFcwnAVHy
— Long Beach State Men's VB (@lbsumvb) February 17, 2019

Long Beach State played well throughout the match, but heated up with each set it played. The Beach outhit the Bruins .474 to .423 in the first set, but UCLA held the edge in kills (14-10). However, after seven ties, LBSU went on a 5-2 run to take a three-point lead (13-10) highlighted by an ace from DeFalco that forced UCLA to call a timeout. The Beach came out of the break and found themselves up 21-18 on another DeFalco ace as the Bruins, again, called for a timeout. Long Beach State would take the first set by a score of 25-20.

The Beach defense kept the Bruins guessing in the second set as UCLA hit just .050 (8-7-20) in the frame, while Long Beach State pounded out nine kills on 17 swings for a .353 clip. The Beach held the Bruins to their lowest points total of the match as LBSU rolled to a 25-17 victory.

The third set was all Long Beach State as the Beach opened the match with three straight points highlighted by back-to-back aces from Tuaniga. LBSU led the entire frame as the Beach hit .381 (11-3-21) and boasted a sideout percentage of 80 percent. The Beach led by as many as 10 (18-8) after a kill by Ensing, before claiming the third and final set, 25-19.

Long Beach State will be back in action on Friday, March 1 when the Beach open Big West Conference action against No. 11 CSUN at the Walter Pyramid. First serve is set for 7 p.m.