Long Beach State Sports : Re: MVB taken down in 5 by Hawaii

Tough to win against a good team when you score almost half their points for them. Waaaay too many errors, both hitting and serving. And, as much as I hate to say it, LB literally choked the fifth set. Cut the errors in half, and we lead at least 8-4 at the change of sides. Then, had two horrid serving errors, over the last few points, that nullified any attempt at a comeback.

I was hoping the team would be correcting a lot of these errors by this time in the season. Hasn't happened.

Let's hope for better tonight.

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24-26, 25-23, 19-25, 25-20, 12-15

Hawaii was a step better in all categories. Beach had some good runs but never looked dominant, it was more the other way around. Very entertaining match and the crowd wasn't quite a sellout but with about 800 Hawaii fans and 2,700+ Beach fans (my guess) and both teams treating this like a post season tilt the crowd intensity was electric at times. I left bummed by the close loss but had a great time watching two teams try and figure out a way to win a grueling match.

Highlights for the Beach
Gajek with 22 kills on a .381 %
Cryst 5 kills .556 2 aces 4 blocks
Pazanti set a solid match not great

Lowlights
Varga and Kandev hit a low %
Serve receive sucked for a while, got better
Hawaii outblocked Beach 2x but they have a huge front line with their 6-11 setter
Larson and Marquardt didn't play their top form

Hope we get em tonight but like I've been saying this year's version of LB MVB isn't championship material unless they figure out a way to ratchet it up a gear. Lots of young guys and the more experienced leaders are not performing at a high enough level to compensate. All that and still a super entertaining way to spend an evening but I fear we will end the season ranked somewhere like 5-7 and have to win the BWT to move on. Doable, but some things gotta get more consistent.

Also, weird game in that each team had 2 guys suffering from cramps shows how much energy was being expended. Sakanoto for Hawaii had to come out midway through and missed the rest of the match; their setter Rosenthal kept falling down like a chopped pine tree when the cramps hit him; on Beach side, Gajek had to come out for about a half set to relieve cramps, and later Pazanti was cramping pretty badly. Crazy to watch.