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sports:
women's volleyball
49ers sweep up
Carolina
By Marten Lewerth
On-line Forty-Niner
The women's
volleyball team began the first road trip of the season Friday
with a 30-17, 30-15, 30-21 sweep over Western Carolina at
the Gameworks/UNLV Invitational in Las Vegas.
Middle blocker
Cheryl Weaver led the floor with 12 kills and a .381 hitting
percentage as the No. 2-ranked 49ers improved to 4-0 on the
year.
Beach setter Keri
Nishimoto said her team was never in danger of losing the
match, as Western Carolina (4-1) hit for an attack percentage
of .049 while Long Beach finished hitting .350.
"The challenge
in that game was just to maintain a high level of play,"
said Nishimoto, who tallied 35 assists in the contest.
Western Carolina's
scoring leader was Christy Attebery, who had eight kills and
eight hitting errors on 37 attempts.
49er Head Coach
Brian Gimmillaro said his squad played consistently against
Western Carolina, a team he described as very aggressive.
"They played
very hard," Gimmillaro said. "When you're No. 1
everybody gets really excited to play you, they had nothing
to lose."
The Beach's offense
was in high gear in the match, as Elisha Thomas hit .500 with
11 kills and Tayyiba Haneef had 10. Junior Brittany Hochevar
finished with nine kills, four service aces and 11 digs.
"We didn't
have to rely on any one person," Nishimoto said. "It
was a good spread."
Also slated for
the 49ers was a match Sunday against American (4-0) at 1 p.m.
The results from this contest were not available at press
time, but Gimmillaro said Saturday that the match would be
more competitive than Friday's.
"American
is basically a new team, but not necessarily a young team,"
Gimmillaro said. "They're more of an international squad
and it will be fun to play them."
Nishimoto said
Saturday that the American team seemed very calm and experienced.
"As long as
we play the way we should," Nishimoto said, "we
should have no problem with them."
The results of
the match against American will be published in Tuesday's
edition of the On-line Forty-Niner.
The Beach returns
home to The Pyramid Thursday for the first Big West Conference
match of the season against Idaho at 7:30 p.m.
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