{"id":304717,"date":"2026-05-07T19:15:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T19:15:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/304717\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T19:15:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T19:15:23","slug":"long-beach-state-places-six-on-avca-all-america-teams-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/304717\/","title":{"rendered":"Long Beach State Places Six On AVCA All-America Teams"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONG BEACH, Calif. — Long Beach State Men’s Volleyball placed six student-athletes on the 2026 AVCA All-America teams, with Skyler Varga<\/a> earning First Team honors, Jackson Cryst<\/a>, Wojciech Gajek<\/a>, and Kellen Larson<\/a> named to the Second Team, and Ben Braun<\/a> and Jake Pazanti<\/a> receiving Honorable Mention recognition, the American Volleyball Coaches Association announced.<\/p>\n

Senior Varga led the way for the Beach with a standout season, totaling 320 kills at 3.20 per set while hitting .322. The outside hitter added 48 service aces and 134 digs, finishing with a team-best 408.0 points.<\/p>\n

Freshmen Cryst and Gajek were key contributors to one of the nation’s most efficient offenses, as Long Beach State hit .347 as a team. Cryst recorded 144 kills on a team-best .531 hitting percentage while adding 114 total blocks, while Gajek finished with 204 kills and a .334 hitting percentage.<\/p>\n

Sophomore Larson anchored the back row en route to Second Team honors, leading the Beach with 187 digs and posting a .960 reception percentage across 548 attempts.<\/p>\n

Senior Braun earned Honorable Mention recognition after anchoring the middle, hitting .520 with 110 kills while totaling 89 blocks at 1.11 per set.<\/p>\n

Redshirt Freshman Pazanti also picked up Honorable Mention honors after directing the offense, averaging 9.19 assists per set for a total of 827 assists. He added 128 digs and 36 total blocks while guiding Long Beach State to one of the top hitting percentages in the country.<\/p>\n

The Beach are 25-4 overall and 8-2 in conference play after capturing the Big West Championship and winning the Long Beach Regional, advancing to the NCAA Final Four this weekend in Los Angeles.

\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONG BEACH, Calif. — Long Beach State Men’s Volleyball placed six student-athletes on the 2026 AVCA All-America teams,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-304717","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\/304717","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=304717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}