said<\/a> the team needed to slow down the Long Beach\u2019s right-side attack.<\/p>\nWhile the Cougars held Sidney Hamaker (LBS\u2019s main right-side target) to a .071 hitting percentage, Chloe Johnson and Kendal Murphy had their way with the WSU defense.<\/p>\n
The outside hitters, who primarily hit on the left, combined for 16 kills and consistently tooled the WSU block.\u00a0<\/p>\n
WSU finished the match with five blocks, compared to Long Beach\u2019s six. It was the Cougs\u2019 first time all season recording fewer blocks than their opponent.<\/p>\n
The Cougs struggled in serve and serve-receive. They totaled four aces, while allowing seven, and 12 service errors.<\/p>\n
This especially hurt the Cougs in the third set, when they struck two service errors and allowed an ace in a four-point stretch to push the Beach\u2019s lead to 17-13. The Beach consistently applied serve pressure, often making WSU\u2019s second pass difficult.<\/p>\n
WSU finished the match with a .184 hitting percentage, its third-lowest this season. Long Beach put hands on the ball at the net, and the Cougars air-mailed several balls.<\/p>\n
OH Mary Healy in the second set was an exception to the Cougs\u2019 attack woes. She logged five kills in the frame. In a stretch when the Cougars scored four times, a Healy kill accounted for every point.<\/p>\n
But by then winning back-to-back longer rallies, the Beach stifled the momentum Healy generated. Those points tied the set at 13 and were enough for the Beach to come back and take the second frame.<\/p>\n
After the 25-22, 25-19 and 25-19 set losses, WSU players and coaches left Bohler Gym court before they could be interviewed.<\/p>\n
The defeat marked the first time WSU has been swept this season, and the Cougars have dropped four of their last five matches.<\/p>\n
The Cougs have a chance for revenge at 6 p.m. Friday at Bohler. They face Long Beach again in their last non-conference match before Pac-12 play.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cougars (5-4, 0-0 Pac-12) lost Thursday night in straight sets to Long Beach State (7-2, 0-0 Big…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":467826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-467825","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\/467825","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=467825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}