{"id":288410,"date":"2026-04-27T18:07:42","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T18:07:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/288410\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T18:07:42","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T18:07:42","slug":"no-3-long-beach-state-earns-three-big-west-weekly-awards-after-sweep-over-no-5-uc-irvine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/288410\/","title":{"rendered":"No. 3 Long Beach State Earns Three Big West Weekly Awards After Sweep Over No. 5 UC Irvine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>LONG BEACH, Calif. &#8212; No. 3 Long Beach State collected three of the Big West&#8217;s weekly honors after securing a pair of wins over No. 5 UC Irvine to close the regular season, with <a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/sports\/mens-volleyball\/roster\/connor-bloom\/9930\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"9930\" target=\"_blank\">Connor Bloom<\/a> (Offensive Player of the Week), <a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/sports\/mens-volleyball\/roster\/kellen-larson\/9936\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"9936\" target=\"_blank\">Kellen Larson<\/a> (Defensive Player of the Week) and <a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/sports\/mens-volleyball\/roster\/jackson-cryst\/9941\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"9941\" target=\"_blank\">Jackson Cryst<\/a> (Freshman of the Week) all earning recognition.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nBloom led the way offensively with one of the most complete weekends of his career. The senior outside hitter recorded a career-high 15 kills to go along with career-high 10 digs and a career-high three assists in the five-set victory, earning a double-double while serving as a primary option in high-leverage situations. He followed that performance by matching his career high with another 15 kills in the four-set road win, hitting .462 while adding 6 digs and 3 service aces. Across the two matches, Bloom averaged 3.33 kills per set and hit .390, providing efficient, high-volume production on the left side.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nLarson anchored the Long Beach State defense and was named Defensive Player of the Week after a standout showing in the backcourt. The libero opened the weekend with 11 digs in the five-set win before posting a career-high 18 digs in the four-set victory. He averaged 3.22 digs per set across the series and played a key role in controlling serve receive and extending rallies against a top-five opponent.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nCryst continued his strong freshman campaign by earning Freshman of the Week honors, his fourth weekly award of the season, following a highly efficient two-match performance. The middle blocker totaled 18 kills while hitting .654, including a 10-kill, .833 effort in the opener. He also contributed 10 blocks, averaging 1.11 per set, consistently impacting the match at the net on both offense and defense.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nThe trio&#8217;s performances helped Long Beach State complete a 2-0 weekend against a top-five UC Irvine squad, building momentum heading into postseason play.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONG BEACH, Calif. &#8212; No. 3 Long Beach State collected three of the Big West&#8217;s weekly honors after&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288411,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-288410","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\/288410","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=288410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}