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sports
Beach begins mission
for title
By Marten Lewerth
On-line Forty-Niner
The perfect 2001
season is a thing of the past for the top-ranked Long Beach
State women's volleyball team. At hand now is the grueling
quest to advance in the single-elimination battlefields of
the NCAA Tournament.
"Without victory there is no survival," said junior
outside hitter Brittany Hochevar. "We have to take one
game at a time."
During the regular season, the 49ers played 90 games and lost
only six along the way to a 28-0 record and the team's eighth
Big West Conference title.
But the stakes are greater now.
"There's no question the bar is set high for us,"
said LBSU Head Coach Brian Gimmillaro.
Said Beach outside hitter Tayyiba Haneef, who led the team
and the BWC with a 4.93 kills per game average during the
season: "Practice has definitely become more serious.
There's a new motivation to do whatever you have to do. Teams
are going to be working much harder against us, so it's more
intense."
The magic numbers to reach this year's Final Four in San Diego
are 12 and four. To have any chance of vying for its fourth
NCAA title, LBSU must win 12 games in its next four matches,
starting with Friday's first-round home contest against San
Diego State at 7:30 p.m.
Boasting four All-Big West first-team athletes in the starting
lineup and the top-rated offense in the country, it would
seem that the 49ers are a clear favorite to prevail against
the unranked Aztecs.
However, nothing is being taken for granted.
"They're certainly better than many teams in the tournament,"
Gimmillaro said of SDSU. "They've played a lot of close
games against good teams."
While many outsiders are looking past the Aztecs to a possible
second-round pairing against Big West rival UC Santa Barbara,
the 49ers are focused squarely on what's in front of them.
"You never underestimate a team," Haneef said.
SDSU ended the regular season with a record of 16-12 overall
and finished fourth in the Mountain West Conference behind
Colorado State, the University of Utah and Brigham Young with
a 9-5 campaign.
"It was an up and down season for us," said Aztec
Coach Mark Warner. "We had a relatively tough schedule
in our conference with some nice wins, but some others we
shouldn't have lost."
Warner said he was surprised to hear of his team's invite
Monday, and added that he and his players are excited to have
the honor of competing in the tournament for the first time
since 1996.
"We'll show up and give it our best shot," he said.
Warner's squad is led offensively by Bulgarian native Zlatina
Anguelova, who averaged 3.51 kills per game in her sophomore
season, hitting for a mark of .248 from the outside position.
All-Mountain West first team senior Katie Magnuson ranked
second on the offense with 3.13 kpg, and the outside hitter
fired at .212 while defensively contributing a team-best 2.82
digs per game.
Quarterbacking SDSU's attack will be junior setter Melissa
Wright, who averaged 11.47 assists per game. Finally, the
Aztecs boast the Mountain West's best server in Robyn Gregg,
who finished with 75 aces (0.84 apg) in 89 games.
As a team, the Aztecs finished the 2001 season hitting for
an attack percentage of .232 with 15.0 kills per game and
2.7 blocks per game.
In comparison, the 49ers balance the nation's top offense
-- sparked by senior setter Keri Nishimoto -- with a strong
defense, hitting .362 as a team with 17.2 kills per game while
holding opponents to marks of .126 and 11.5 respectively.
With weapons like Haneef and two-time Big West Player of the
Year Cheryl Weaver leading the attack, Warner knows the 49ers
are a formidable opponent.
"Obviously, they're not the No. 1 team in the country
for nothing," Warner said. "Long Beach plays good
defense. We could attack really well and still not be successful,
but we're just looking forward to the challenge."
LBSU is 31-25 all time against the Aztecs, winning the most
recent two contests after falling to SDSU in four games in
the second round of the 1995 NCAA Tournament.
The 49ers take on first-round opponent San Diego State at
The Pyramid Friday at 7:30 p.m., following the match between
No. 25 UC Santa Barbara (17-13, 14-4 BWC) and the University
of San Diego (21-8, 10-4 West Coast Conference) at 5:30 p.m.
The winners of Friday's contests will face off at The Pyramid
for a second-round match Saturday at 7:30 p.m.
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