No. 7 Long Beach State Battles, But Comes up Short at CSUN in Five

Friday, April 16

Northridge, Calif.

7:00 PM

Long Beach State University

5-4,5-4Big West

CSUN

2-7,2-7Big West

Long Beach St.

CSUN

Photo by: John Fajardo

No. 7 Long Beach State Battles, But Comes up Short at CSUN in Five

4/16/2021 10:20:00 PM | Men's Volleyball

Box Score

Simon Andersen racks up a career-high 13 blocks, while Spencer Olivier registers 21 kills in the setback

By: Lindy Zamora, Associate Athletic Communications Director

Box Score (PDF)

NORTHRDIGE, Calif. – In back-and-forth battle, No. 7 Long Beach State came up just short as the Beach dropped a 3-2 [25-12, 18-25, 27-29, 31-29, 14-16] hard-fought contest to CSUN at the Matadome on Friday night.

The Beach (5-4, 5-4 Big West) took the first set over the Matadors (2-7, 2-7 Big West) convincingly as Long Beach State hit .409 to CSUN's .091. Everything seemed to be clicking for the Beach, however, the Matadors found their groove in the second set and evened the match at one set apiece after defeating LBSU, 25-18.

The third set was a battle throughout that saw 17 ties and seven lead changes between the two Big West Conference foes. With the set tied at 23-all, CSUN sent it to five set points as Long Beach State continued to counter until the Matadors finally edged out a 29-27 victory.

Down two sets to one, Long Beach State took an early lead in the fourth set, but CSUN managed to come back and tie things up at 13-13. Back-to-back kills from Clarke Godbold and Ethan Siegfried, followed by an ace from Shane Holdaway put the Beach up 17-14. However, the two teams would battle it out again until Long Beach State emerged victorious, 31-29, to force a fifth and deciding set.

With the match tied at two sets apiece, CSUN took a quick 5-1 advantage. Trailing 8-4, Long Beach State fought back and went on a 6-0 run as the Beach turned a four-point deficit into a two-point lead (10-8). From there, another battle ensued as LBSU and CSUN exchanged points until the Matadors sent it to match point, 14-13. However, a kill from Spencer Olivier evened things up at 14-all, marking the 34th tie of the contest, before CSUN closed out the set and match with a kill and an ace.

Despite the loss, Long Beach State received several solid performances as three players reached double digit kills, Simon Andersen set a new career-high with 13 blocks, and Mason Briggs logged 13 digs.

Olivier led the Beach with 21 kills for his third 20-kill performance of the season, while Siegfried finished the match with 13, and Godbold recorded 11 kills and was just one dig shy of a double-double.

Ryan Poole dished out 53 assists in the match, while adding five blocks.

As a team, the Beach racked up 18.5 total team blocks. Andersen set the tone as Poole, Siegfried, and Godbold each added five. Holdaway contributed four.

Andersen was solid on both sides of the ball as he hit .312 and registered eight kills. Holdaway concluded the match with seven kills on nine swings to hit .667.

CSUN was led by Maciej Ptaszynski who had 13 kills. Additionally, Daniel Wetter had 12 and Cole Chea tallied 10. Johnny Anselmo and Griffin Walters led the back row with 11 digs apiece. Walters also added nine kills.

Long Beach State and CSUN will be back in action on Saturday, April 17 at 7 p.m., at the Walter Pyramid. The match will be broadcast on ESPN3.