{"id":275201,"date":"2026-04-19T05:52:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T05:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/275201\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T05:52:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T05:52:08","slug":"no-3-long-beach-state-beats-no-5-uc-irvine-in-four-sets-eyes-postseason-the562-org","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/275201\/","title":{"rendered":"No. 3 Long Beach State Beats No. 5 UC Irvine In Four Sets, Eyes Postseason \u2013 The562.org"},"content":{"rendered":"

The562\u2019s coverage of Long Beach State athletics for the 2025-26 season is sponsored by Marilyn Bohl<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If the Long Beach State men\u2019s volleyball team was looking for a signature win of the season \u2013 the Beach don\u2019t need to look further than Saturday night.<\/p>\n

On the heels of a five-set thriller on Friday, No.3-ranked Beach went on the road and came up with a convincing 25-19, 25-13, 20-25, 25-23 win over No. 5-ranked UC Irvine at the Bren Events Center.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Long Beach State celebrated on the Anteaters\u2019 court after freshman Jackson Cryst hit the match-ending kill to give the Beach an opening win on the same court they\u2019ll try to win a couple more times when they start play in the Big West Tournament next weekend.<\/p>\n

Sophomore Kellen Larson put it simply after putting up a career-high 18 digs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s time to get nice and comfy,\u201d Larson said of playing in the Big West Tournament at the Bren Events Center next week.<\/p>\n

While Friday night was the official senior night for LBSU \u2013 Connor Bloom and Ben Braun gave another memorable performance as each reached new career highs to help the Beach get out strong in the opening two sets.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bloom, who has played lights out while filling in for Alex Kandev, continued his strong play in the first set was a one-man wrecking crew early on as he had a 4-0 run himself that included two kills, an ace and a block as LBSU took an 11-6 lead. The senior finished the night with a career-high and match-high 15 kills.<\/p>\n

That momentum continued throughout the first set and Daniil Hershytnovich helped give the Beach 1-0 lead as he came in late in the set and put away a couple of kills.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While the Beach\u2019s attack hit at an efficient .429 clip, Long Beach\u2019s defense shined as Ben Braun, Jackson Cryst, Jake Pazanti and Bloom gave the Anteaters\u2019 fits throughout the match.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Long Beach\u2019s block has become a strong point for the Beach over the last couple of weeks, and it couldn\u2019t come at a better time as LBSU had a season-high 16.5 blocks and Braun led the way with a career-high 10 blocks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That momentum continued into the second set as Long Beach led wire-to-wire in a convincing 25-13 win. Defensively Long Beach held UC Irvine to a .000 hitting percentage and kept UCI out of system for the whole set.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, after the break between the second and third sets, UCI came out with some fresh legs and jumped out to a 5-0 lead. While the stats weren\u2019t too different between the teams, the Anteaters were able to take advantage of eight Long Beach attack errors to force a fourth set with a 25-20 win.<\/p>\n

In the fourth set, Long Beach got back to the style of play they had in the first two sets as they went on a 5-0 run midway through the set to take a 20-12 lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think a lot of teams get beat by other teams, but when we lose games, we lose to ourselves,\u201d Braun said. \u201cThird-set response is something we\u2019re really big on. Sometimes it doesn\u2019t go our way, but in the gym this week and moving forward, it\u2019s about that response so we don\u2019t give away points and we stay in control of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

That mentality kept the Beach in it as UC Irvine had another run, but LBSU was able to hold on to take the win. The Beach will now look to play a couple more times in Irvine as they look to win their first Big West Championship title since 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe said we want to make this our home base for the next week and a half with the intention of having three matches,\u201d Long Beach State coach Nick MacRae said. \u201cTo beat a top-five team in a back-to-back series is good for our program moving forward. Now it\u2019s about the semifinals and how we\u2019re going to improve in the next four days.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The562\u2019s coverage of Long Beach State athletics for the 2025-26 season is sponsored by Marilyn Bohl. If the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275202,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-275201","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\/275201","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=275201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}