{"id":118608,"date":"2026-01-03T10:27:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T10:27:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/118608\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T10:27:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T10:27:06","slug":"long-beach-state-opens-2026-with-pair-of-exhibition-wins-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/118608\/","title":{"rendered":"Long Beach State Opens 2026 with Pair of Exhibition Wins"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/bvmsports.com\/ncaa\/long-beach-state-beach\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Long Beach State<\/a> kicked off the 2026 season with two convincing exhibition wins at the North American Challenge, defeating Alberta in four sets and sweeping Calgary. The Beach showcased strong performances, particularly in serving and net defense, claiming their first victories of the year at home in the Walter Pyramid.<\/p>\n<p> By the NumbersLong Beach State recorded 43 kills and an 11-4.5 advantage in blocks against Alberta.Skyler Varga led against Calgary with 13 kills, complemented by five service aces and three blocks. State of PlayThe Beach achieved a .337 hitting percentage against Alberta and hit .431 against Calgary.They totaled 10 service aces during the match against Calgary, demonstrating offensive pressure. What&#8217;s Next<\/p>\n<p>Long Beach State will continue their participation in the North American Challenge, with games resuming on Sunday, January 4th, where they will face additional international competition.<\/p>\n<p> Bottom Line<\/p>\n<p>The strong start illustrates Long Beach State&#8217;s dominance early in the season, setting a promising tone as they prepare for upcoming matches in the international tournament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Long Beach State kicked off the 2026 season with two convincing exhibition wins at the North American Challenge,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118465,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-118608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}