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LONG BEACH, Calif. \u2013 The\u00a0Big West Champion and No. 3 seed Long Beach State advanced to the\u00a02026 National Collegiate Men\u2019s Volleyball Championship\u00a0semifinals and one step closer to defending its\u00a0title with a straight-set win over ninth-ranked Loyola in the regional finals, 25-21, 25-21, 25-19, at\u00a0LBS Financial Credit Union\u00a0Pyramid\u00a0on Saturday night.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With the victory, LBSU\u00a0moves to 25-4 on the year and is set for a fourth tussle\u00a0of the season\u00a0with\u00a0fellow\u00a0Big West\u00a0squad\u00a0and\u00a0second-seeded\u00a0Hawai\u2019i in the\u00a0national collegiate semifinals. Both regular-season meetings went to the \u2019Bows with the five-set Championship battle going to the Beach at the Bren Events Center in Irvine\u00a0last Saturday night.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
With an all-Big West semifinal contest\u00a0set for May 9, the league is guaranteed a national finalist for\u00a0an eighth-straight season \u2013 every year since sport sponsorship in 2018. With UC Irvine advancing on the other side of the brackets, the potential for a Big West finale exists\u00a0for a third time (2019, \u201922).\u00a0<\/p>\n
Skyler Varga led the LBSU offense with 14 kills on .520\u00a0hitting\u00a0and two aces. Connor Bloom added 12 kills at a .435 hitting clip, while Big West Championship MVB Wojciech Gajek contributed nine kills. Setter Jake\u00a0Pazanti\u00a0recorded 36 assists with a match-high eight digs.\u00a0LBSU hit .369 as a team and the nation\u2019s top serving squad finished with eight aces compared to just one for Loyola.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The opening set\u00a0between Long Beach State and Loyola\u00a0was the most competitive\u00a0of the night.\u00a0LBSU\u00a0built an early 4-1 lead, highlighted by a triple block from\u00a0Gajek, Bloom and Ben Braun.\u00a0Loyola\u00a0was able to regroup and\u00a0settle in behind\u00a0the play of\u00a0Aleksandar Sosa and\u00a0UC San Diego graduate transfer\u00a0Josh Schellinger\u00a0as the\u00a0Ramblers took their first lead at 12-11 and pushed it to 13-11, taking advantage of a brief dip in\u00a0the\u00a0sideout\u00a0efficiency\u00a0of the Beach.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, the home team was able to respond quickly after\u00a0Bloom delivered back-to-back out-of-system kills, and another block tied the set at 13-13. From there, the teams traded points until 19-19 before Long Beach closed on a 6-2 run. Gajek and Bloom each contributed key kills, and\u00a0freshman\u00a0Jackson\u00a0Cryst\u00a0finished the set with a service ace\u00a0as the Beach hit\u00a0.480 in the\u00a0opening frame.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Set two\u00a0shifted\u00a0in LBSU\u2019s favor midway through. After an even start, Varga and\u00a0Cryst\u00a0sparked a 4-0 run from the service line, including consecutive aces by\u00a0Cryst, to extend the lead to 9-5.\u00a0The Beach\u00a0maintained\u00a0control from there, using balanced offense and steady serving pressure to limit Loyola\u2019s opportunities.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bloom and Gajek contributed consistently, while Loyola\u2019s errors increased under pressure. Long Beach led by as many as six points before closing the set at 25-21, hitting .333 and holding Loyola without a team block.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The third set followed a similar pattern early, with the teams tied at 14-14. Loyola briefly took an\u00a018-17 lead after a service ace, but that was its final push.\u00a0The Beach\u00a0answered\u00a0and\u00a0then used a block by\u00a0Cryst\u00a0and Gajek\u00a0followed by\u00a0a service ace from\u00a0Pazanti\u00a0to create separation at 20-18.\u00a0Closing the match on a 5-1 run,\u00a0with Varga sealing the win with a service ace.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Ramblers\u00a0got 14 kills apiece from Schellinger and Sosa\u00a0as\u00a0Loyola\u00a0narrowly outhit LBSU .371-.369 in the match, closing the year at 21-9.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Story Links LONG BEACH, Calif. \u2013 The\u00a0Big West Champion and No. 3 seed Long Beach State…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-340515","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\/340515","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=340515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}