No. 1 Men’s Volleyball Sweeps Big West Weekly Awards

3/17/2025 3:34:00 PM | Men's Volleyball

Skyler Varga, Nato Dickinson and Moni Nikolov claimed the four awards with Nikolov named both setter and freshman of the week.

By: Roger Kirk, Associate Athletics Director, Communications & Broadcast

LONG BEACH, Calif. – Long Beach State Men's Volleyball was the winner of all four Big West weekly awards on March 17 following an outstanding week of matches as No. 1 Beach remained undefeated on the year and in Big West conference play. Skyler Varga was named the Offensive Player of the Week, Nato Dickinson was the Defensive Player of the Week and Moni Nikolov claimed both Setter and Freshman of the Week honors from the conference.

No. 1 Long Beach State improved to 18-0 on the year and freshman Moni Nikolov continues to be a big reason why, winning two conference awards once again recognizing his play last week. Nikolov had seven aces as Long Beach State defeated No. 7 CSUN in three sets, finishing with 30 assists and four blocks while guiding the Beach to .387 hitting. He then had three more aces against No. 19 Princeton, finishing with 30 assists again while making four kills as the team hit .333. In the process, Nikolov set a new single-season record for Long Beach State with 65 aces with plenty of time for more as the Beach has 10 more regular season matches prior to the postseason.

Skyler Varga was consistently excellent on the week and earned Offensive Player of the Week honors. Varga hit .516 on the week, and had six kills with no errors and four aces in Long Beach State's win over No. 7 CSUN. Varga then led Long Beach State in kills, aces and digs in their win over No. 19 Princeton, finishing with 11 kills on .476 hitting as well as four aces and five digs. Varga averaged 4.67 points per set for Long Beach State in the two wins.

The Beach block played a big role in those wins, 9.5 in each match for Long Beach State and Nato Dickinson led that effort to be named the Big West Defensive Player of the Week. Dickinson kicked off the week with three blocks against CSUN, and then contributed in seven of the team's 9.5 blocks against the Tigers.

Long Beach State's homestand continues this weekend, as the Beach will host NJIT for a pair of matches in the Walter Pyramid. Both matches will be on ESPN+, starting at 7 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.