{"id":71772,"date":"2025-11-27T05:45:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T05:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/71772\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T05:45:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T05:45:11","slug":"long-beach-state-sweeps-uc-irvine-in-first-round-of-big-west-tournament-the562-org","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/71772\/","title":{"rendered":"Long Beach State Sweeps UC Irvine in First Round of Big West Tournament \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

The Long Beach State women\u2019s volleyball team has a lot to be thankful for this holiday season. The Beach had stacked up a couple of convincing wins heading into the Big West Tournament, which they\u2019ll have the pleasure of hosting in the newly named LBS Financial Credit Union Pyramid.<\/p>\n

The Beach took advantage of their home-court advantage against UC Irvine in the first round on Wednesday night, sweeping the Anteaters for the third time this season with a 25\u201318, 25\u201320, 26\u201324 win.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing at home is huge, to be able to play in front of our community, and I thought the team played really well today,\u201d said LBSU coach Natalie Reagan. \u201cIt\u2019s always tough going against a team that\u2019s good and talented, and UCI has had their share of adversity this year and they\u2019ve done a great job to come back and battle. We talked a lot about showing up against this team and making sure we don\u2019t overlook them, and our team did a great job of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Beach won the first two sets comfortably, but were met with a tough response from UC Irvine after leading midway through the third set. The Anteaters chipped away at the lead with seven consecutive points and even came back to take an 18\u201317 advantage.<\/p>\n

Looking for a response, LBSU leaned on their pin hitters, senior Elise Agi and redshirt freshman Logan King, who had seven kills each in the set to help the Beach rally and take it in extra points. King finished the night with 11 kills on a game-high .435 hitting percentage, while Agi led the match with 12 kills while hitting .250.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think just being in so many situations like that before, I get really excited when I have those pressure moments,\u201d said the senior Agi. \u201cI told them I was going to be ripping balls and I know everyone has my back with that. This is what I love to do, and it\u2019s just leaning on my team and staying aggressive.\u201d<\/p>\n

For King, the performance doesn\u2019t come as a surprise for a player who\u2019s averaged over 13 kills per match during her freshman campaign. Wednesday night\u2019s showing came just after the release of the All\u2013Big West awards, where UC Santa Barbara\u2019s Gabi Martinez won Freshman of the Year despite King earning Freshman of the Week honors in seven of the conference\u2019s 14 weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m always going to push myself as hard as I can, and maybe if I didn\u2019t do enough to get that accolade, then that just means more work on my end,\u201d King said. \u201cI\u2019m just excited to keep pushing in the Big West with the girls and try to win it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMartinez is a great player and this is nothing against her, but we really missed out on not getting Logan King Freshman of the Year,\u201d Reagan added. \u201cWith the stat lines she has and the way she\u2019s carried the team at times, I really feel like that was a missed opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wednesday was also another big night for fellow senior Rhiann Sheffie, who had 10 kills on .208 hitting while getting in on a team-high three blocks. The performance marks her fourth match with double-digit kills in the Beach\u2019s last five, a mark she had reached only three other times this season.<\/p>\n

LBSU dominated the first two sets, hitting .162 in the opener while holding UC Irvine to -.051. The Beach used runs of five and six points in the first set and led by as much as 10. Similarly, they went on a six-point run midway through the second set to take a comfortable lead.<\/p>\n

The win marks the Beach\u2019s 11th straight home victory this season, dating back to September. LBSU will be back in the Pyramid after Thanksgiving on Friday to take on Cal Poly in the semifinals at 6 pm.<\/p>\n

\u201cCal Poly is a great team and their offense is hard to stop,\u201d Reagan said. \u201cIt really comes down to the serve and pass battle that triggers the game so much. So being able to take care of the ball on that side of it is really important.\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. The Long…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71773,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-71772","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\/71772","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=71772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}