Sports
No. 1 Long Beach State Serves Up a Semifinal Win in Quest for Back-to-Back Big West Titles
Story Links HONOLULU – The top team in the nation and The Big West regular-season champion Long Beach State powered past No. 4 seed UC San Diego in straight sets to punch their ticket to Saturday’s finale at The Hawaiian Islands presents the 2025 Outrigger Big West Men’s Volleyball Championship, held at SimpliFi Arena […]
The win moves LBSU to a 27-2 overall record and secures a place in the Championship match for consecutive seasons in the bid to go back-to-back. The Tritons cap off an inspired season with an overall record of 18-11, the most Division I wins by a UCSD team in program history, with a postseason surge that included a five-set win over UC Santa Barbara in Thursday night’s first round matchup.
The Beach were in command from the first serve, hitting .520 in the opening set and finishing with a sparkling .400 hitting percentage overall. The offense was fluid, led by a 14-kill and eight-dig outing for freshman Alex Kandev, who hit .600 (14-2-20) for LBSU. Ben Braun added five kills and five blocks to lead all players at the net.
UC San Diego was able to rally in a second set that featured 11 ties and four lead changes. The Tritons led the match at 18-16 after a kill for Selcho, but the Beach got back on the high side with three unanswered points capped by the Nikolov record-breaking ace to put the score at 19-18. UCSD kept fighting with ties at 19 and 22-all before the Beach was able to close it out on a Kandev strike as the freshman tandem from Sofia, Bulgaria connected on set point.
Despite the sweep, UCSD showed flashes of the grit that carried them into the semifinal round with five players tallying at least five kills. Upperclassmen Josh Schellinger, Sebastian Lara and Peter Selcho each finished with seven kills in the match with Selcho doing it on 11 errorless swings for a .636 hitting percentage. Graduate transfer Bryce Dvorak tallied 29 assists in a final collegiate match.
Next up, the Beach awaits the victor of No. 3 seed UC Irvine and second-seeded Championship host Hawai’i. The match will be played on Saturday at 10 p.m. PT/7 p.m. HT with the Champion earning the league’s automatic bid into the field of the National Collegiate Championship. Last year, the Beach and Anteaters both advanced to the national semifinal with LBSU finishing as runners-up.