California Baptist University
Long Beach State
Gold Rushed
1/30/2013 6:08:00 AM | Men's Volleyball
LBSU won the last two games by a combined four points to take a 3-1 (26-28, 25-21, 27-25, 25-23) victory.
"What we were trying to do and what we did were a little bit different tonight," said CBU Head Coach Wes Schneider. "They've got a really good offense and we tried to take advantage of a couple spots where we knew we had an opportunity, but we never quite got in a rhythm converting those. Against a good team you have to take advantage when you get your chances and we didn't do that."
The Lancers opened with a thrilling 28-26 win, storming back from three points down late to win it on an ace by Levi Cabral. CBU would give the game right back, falling by four in the second game.
The rubber game would be just as intense as the opener, but this time LBSU came out on top.
The 49ers grabbed set point, 24-23, on a kill from Taylor Crabb, but Cabral responded with a strike of his own to even it back up. Another Cabral kill would fight off a second game point, but the Lancers couldn't do it a third time as Crabb smashed a ball down the center of the court for the win.
It was blocks down the stretch that told the story in the fourth game. In their final five points the 49ers recorded three blocks to hold off the Lancers for the win.
CBU was out-blocked 10-3 overall in the match and outhit .325-.253. The Lancers committed 25 errors to just 13 for the 49ers on the attack and CBU also posted eight more service errors.
"Serving can be a double edged sword," said Schneider. "We're aggressive back there and sometimes it pays off and sometimes it doesn't. We want to try and put those good teams in trouble on the serve receive, so we go back there and bomb. When it's not on you get 19 errors in four sets like we did tonight."
CBU was led by Guilherme Koepp with 21 kills and Crabb had 23 for the 49ers. Cabral also posted 18 kills for the Lancers to become the first player in program history to eclipse the 1,600 kill mark. He now has 1,616 for his career.
The Lancers fall to 4-4 overall, 1-2 in the MPSF, while LBSU improves to 6-2, 4-1.
CBU will be back in action tomorrow night as the Lancers host No. 9 Cal State Northridge.
