LONG BEACH, Calif. \u2013 No. 2 Long Beach State\u2019s strength at the service line proved too much for No. 16 Penn State as The Beach recorded a sweep (26-24, 25-18, 25-19) in a non-conference men\u2019s volleyball match Saturday night at the LBS Financial Credit Union Pyramid. The Nittany Lions dropped to 11-5 overall as their seven-match winning streak came to an end, while The Beach improved to 12-2.<\/p>\n
Long Beach State, which entered the match as the best team in the nation in aces\/set, racked up 13 against Penn State. Jackson Cryst led the way with five, while Alex Kandev, Braedon Marquardt, and Wojciech Gajek all had two apiece.<\/p>\n
Penn State received a strong performance from Sean Harvey<\/a> in a loss to the defending national champion. Harvey hit .312 while matching Matthew Luoma<\/a> with a team-high seven kills. Owen Rose<\/a>, who ranks second in the nation in blocks\/set, totaled six over three sets against The Beach, including three solo.<\/p>\n Set 1 Set 2 Set 3 Career Highs Up Next
Penn State came up just short in a 26-24 loss in the most competitive set of the night. The Nittany Lions trailed 11-6 but battled back from the five-point deficit to take a 14-13 lead after a block by Rose and Jaidyn Bethel<\/a> capped a 3-0 run. They later used another 3-0 run to tie the score at 20-all, getting kills from Tristan Hassell<\/a> and Harvey during that stretch. Facing set point, Luoma came through with a kill to make it 24-24. Long Beach State followed with back-to-back points to end the set, scoring on a kill and an ace by Kandev.<\/p>\n
Long Beach State took a 2-0 lead in the match with a 25-18 win in set two. Penn State used a 3-0 run to tie the score at 15-all midway through the set. Bethel and Luoma had kills during the run. It was all The Beach after that as it pulled away with a 6-0 run on its way to the seven-point win. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The final set was again close for most of the way until Long Beach State pulled away and posted the 25-19 win. Penn State was down just one point at 19-18 following a service error. The Beach then closed the match with six of the next seven points. The match fittingly ended on an ace by Cryst.<\/p>\n
Matthew Luoma<\/a> \u2013 digs (9)
Bennett Wilson<\/a> \u2013 digs (4)<\/p>\n
No. 16 Penn State continues its west coast trip with a match at No. 7 Pepperdine on Wednesday at 9 p.m. ET. The Waves are 11-4 overall following a 3-1 loss to No. 3 Hawaii in their most recent match.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONG BEACH, Calif. \u2013 No. 2 Long Beach State\u2019s strength at the service line proved too much for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":210014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-210185","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\/210185","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=210185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}