Men’s College Volleyball Makes NCAA Final Four

By Kurt Helin
Editor

A season of hard work and good play paid off for the Long Beach State men’s volleyball team last weekend.

Not because they played their best in the conference tournament — they were swept out in the semifinals by Pepperdine on Thursday night — but because as winners of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, they received the at-large bid to the NCAA Final Four taking place starting tonight (Thursday) at UC Irvine. Long Beach State opens tonight against Pepperdine, while Ohio State will face Penn State in the other match.

“We get another shot at Pepperdine and we get a chance to play with the final four teams in the nation,” said coach Alan Knipe.

He said last week that he felt his team had put itself in position to make it to the final four (which is all the tournament the NCAA has for men’s volleyball).

“When it comes down to it, the at large bid has all but one time gone to the MPSF,” Knipe said. “We tied for the MPSF title, and the team we tied with we swept during the regular season.”

The team was so good during the regular season thanks to three players who earned national honors — Senior Paul Lotman and sophomore Dan Alexander are first team All-Americans, while sophomore Dean Bittner was a second team All-America selection.

Long Beach had its successful season based in part on its aggressive serving, however they had a terrible serving night against Pepperdine last Thursday with 32 service errors. Knipe also said his team did not play all the way through some of the longer points of the match.

“We play harder than our opponents, but we didn’t do that against Pepperdine,” Knipe said.

One advantage Long Beach will have this weekend is that the NCAA Final Four is just a few minutes down the 405 freeway.

“Anybody who has been to a Final Four will tell you they are happy to be there wherever it is,” Knipe said. “But it is an advantage that (Long Beach) travels so well, we have such a big fan base.”

Those fans can watch the match starting at 8 p.m. by traveling to the Bren Center on the UC Irvine campus.

The game also will be televised live on ESPN2. The first match between Penn State and Ohio State starts at 6 p.m. and will be broadcast on ESPN2. The winners of those two Thursday night games will meet Saturday at 4 p.m. for the title, also on ESPN2. For details, visit www.longbeachstate.com.