Greetings from Long Beach, Calif., where No. 2 Long Beach State overpowered No. 6 UC Irvine in the Pyramid on Wednesday night, pretty much turning the MPSF into a three-team race as we head into the final third of the regular season.
The Beach was by no means hitting on all cylinders, but coach Alan Knipe has an extremely athletic, powerful and balanced team and at 16-2 overall, 12-1 in the league, seemingly poised for a great run the rest of the way.
“Long Beach is playing like one of the best if not the best team in the country right now,” UCI coach David Kniffin said. “They’re tough to crack.”
There was one other MPSF match on Wednesday when No. 12 CSUN won in four over visiting UC San Diego.
Also in this roundup, a visit with longtime Beach guy Tyler Hildebrand, both a former player and longtime coach, who has taken the job as an assistant coach for Nebraska’s women’s program.
There were also two MIVA matches on Wednesday. But first, a look at Thursday’s schedule for the NCAA Division I-II men.
There is one match in the MPSF, when No. 14 USC (6-10, 5-8) plays the first of back-to-back matches at No. 4 Hawai’i (16-2, 7-2).
There are three MIVA matches on Thursday. Second-place Lewis (13-3, 7-2), the No. 5 team in the AVCA poll, goes to last-place Lindenwood. (1-13, 1-8) No. 9 Loyola (9-5, 5-2) goes to Quincy (3-12, 1-8), playing its first match with a new coach, and No. 11 Ball State (14-4, 6-3) plays host to Grand Canyon (9-8, 5-4), going for back-to-back wins over the Lopes.
The EIVA is off until Friday when its full slate includes UCSB at Penn State.
In Conference Carolinas, first-place King (14-2, 9-1) swept Lees-McRae (5-10, 3-7) on Wednesday and Thursday Emmanuel (4-12, 3-7) is at North Greenville (5-11, 5-5).
LBSU 3, UCI 1: Beach won 25-16, 25-22, 25-27, 25-15, dropping the Anteaters to 11-6, 8-5 after they hit .105. Last week’s national player of the week, senior Tamir Hershko, really struggled, with only six kills in 23 swings. He hit minus 0.43 and spent most of the third set — which UCI won — on the bench. For that matter, Thomas Hodges led the Anteaters, who saw a three-match win streak end, with just eight kills. Four others had six or more.
The Beach grinded and hit .295, but were led by the usual big guys. Kyle Ensing had 14 kills and hit .379, to go with eight digs and four blocks, TJ DeFalco had 12 kills and hit .290 and had three blocks, and three others had six kills each, including Bryce Yould, who hit .625.
“We’ve tried really hard to make sure we’re not becoming too dependent on one guy or the other. It’s really easy with TJ and Kyle to set them a million balls,” Knipe said. “It doesn’t make any difference what we do, they’re gonna get theirs. But we take a lot of pride in the fact that we’ve got a lot of guys who can kill the ball, we’ve got a good left-handed setter who can kill the ball, and all the guys playing the outside hitter spot can kill the ball.”
Speaking of that, setter Josh Tuaniga runs the show masterfully and he had 42 assists, three kills including a monster second-ball swing late in the fourth set, and five digs and two blocks.
“He creates a lot of stress for opponents,” Knipe said.
“Even when we’re playing really good volleyball it’s no better than a deuce-game win for us,” Kniffin said. “They never go away.”
“They’ve got a lot of volleyball saavy. They make plays that other teams don’t make and the plays that are sloppy for other teams they make look clean. They’re just a volleyball level above what other teams are doing.”
Long Beach senior libero Andrew Sato, who had 10 digs, recognized that this was a big MPSF victory.
“They’ve been on a hot streak lately, pulling out some five-set wins and we knew we were going to have to bring it,” Sato said.
Speaking of hot streaks, Long Beach has won nine in a row, all in the MPSF, since losing in four at top-ranked Ohio State on January 28.
“We recognized areas to improve on after Ohio State and it’s just been getting significantly better every day at practice and every game,” Sato said.
That’s not lost on Knipe, who is obviously enjoying his team on and off the court.
“We’ve got a great group. Obviously they’re talented volleyball players, but absolutely one of the most enjoyable groups I’ve ever been around as far as their desire to get better and they’re commitment to this incredible team culture they’ve developed as a unit,” Knipe said.
Long Beach swept the Anteaters at Irvine on Feb. 10.
“To beat a good team twice is tough,” said Knipe, the 2012 U.S. Olympic coach. “Irvine is not easy and people might think so, but there are incredibly gifted teams in the MPSF and they’re all really, really well coached. So I’m really proud of the guys because tonight wasn’t necessarily the easiest match. We gutted it out and grinded it out more than it was pretty.”
Which might not have been a bad thing, he said.
“We’ve been on a nice roll for six weeks or so where things have been really comfortable and really smooth for most of our matches,” Knipe said. “Tonight it wasn’t like that and the response from our blocking defense and just the effort and winning long rallies was good. Getting the momentum back through your effort is a tough thing to do sometimes and our guys do that on a regular basis.”
Long Beach is home Friday for UC San Diego and then has a week off before George Mason of the EIVA and Loyola of the MIVA come to the Pyramid.
CSUN tops UCSD: The Matadors won 25-16, 22-25, 25-18, 25-21, and improved to 12-6 overall, 5-6 MPSF, while UCSD fell to 5-12, 2-10.
Arvis Greene led the winners with 21 kills and Dimitar Kalchev added 25 kills and had three aces and eight digs.
Tanner Syftestad had 16 kills, eight digs and three aces for UCSD. Shane Beamer had 11 kills, five blocks and an ace.
MIVA: Ball State, Fort Wayne win — The Cardinals rolled past Grand Canyon 25-21, 25-10, 25-21. Matt Szews had 12 kills and 11 digs and Matt Walsh had 12 blocks — three solo.
Fort Wayne lost a non-conference match at Lourdes in Ohio 25-18, 25-21, 20-25, 29-27 to drop to 5-15. Lourdes is 12-4.
Hildebrand headed to Nebraska: The associate head coach is going to try pulling double duty, joining a program that challenges for the NCAA women’s title every year and eventually leaving one that certainly is in the hunt this men’s season.
“It was an incredibly tough decision,” Hildebrand said after the match Wednesday, “a very emotional decision, and ultimately we thought it was the right move for the family and we’re excited about the new challenge.”
Hildebrand, 33, is married to former Stanford standout and USA national-team player Kristin (Richards) Hildebrand and has been a women’s coach on the junior college and club levels.
According to the Nebraska news release from earlier this week announcing that Hildebrand had been hired, his wife “will be involved with the Husker program in a role to be determined later, similar to the role Chris and Jen Tamas served on the Husker staff as a husband-wife duo the past two years.”
Tyler Hildebrand was the Olympics beach coach for Jake Gibb and Casey Patterson last summer in Rio and was planning on being on staff for John Speraw and the USA men’s team for the next quad.
“It was really difficult to turn down the Tokyo Olympics, so it was just a tough decision,” he said “But we’re excited about the challenge.”
One of those challenges will be moving back and forth between programs the next three months, which he hopes to do.
“We’ve got to make sure that everything works out NCAA-wise, but I’m going to be able to be a volunteer here and fly in and out.”
He certainly wants to be a part of the Long Beach stretch run.
“That’s one of the things we discussed,” Hildebrand said. “Luckily Nebraska, John Cook and Long Beach were willing to make it work so I could finish this out. You know, I’ve had seven of these guys (through club and college) for eight years. It’s been a long time with these guys.”
It’s been a long time for him at the Beach, where he was a standout setter from 2003-06. He played on the national team from 2006-12. He’s been on staff at Long Beach since 2013. From 2008-10 he served as a volunteer assistant, a role that he’ll assume again.
And as far as coaching women?
“I don’t think there’s much of a difference. Personalities are going to be different, whether you’re teaching college or high school men’s and women’s, and I know there are going to be generalities that are different, but for our job, to get them to work and learn the game, it’s a similar deal.”
Earlier this offseason, Nebraska added Olympic libero Kayla Banwarth, a former Husker, to the staff. She replaced Dani Busboom Kelly, who took the job as head coach at Louisville. Hildebrand replaces Tamas, who is now the head coach at Illinois.
Hildebrand knows Banwarth well and said they visited quite a bit when he went to Lincoln last week.
“And (Nebraska head coach) John Cook has been great,” Hildebrand said. “I’m really looking forward to working with him. I’m very bummed about not being able to work with Speraw and Alan, but I’m excited about working with John Cook.”
Speaking of Cook, this is from the Nebraska news release earlier this week:
“Of all the coaches I’ve hired, Tyler is giving up more of what he has going on right now than anyone,” Cook said. “He’s got a Long Beach State men’s team that could win a national championship. He had a contract offer to be with the U.S. Men’s National Team that could be favored to win gold at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. And he’s also giving up his successful club program that he’s been a part of. So he’s giving up a lot to come to Nebraska. I know it was a difficult process for him to go through, but he and Kristin are really excited to come to Nebraska.”
