Women's
volleyball sweeps two home matches
By
Karl Peterson
Daily Forty-Niner
The
Long Beach State women's volleyball team
won both of its weekend Big West Conference
matches.
Saturday
night The Beach (14-6, 9-4) beat the Aggies
(14-9. 6-6) of Utah State University, 3-1
(30-27, 23-30, 30-26, 30-20).
The
first game of the match in front of 1,531
at The Pyramid saw an evenly matched game
which went down to the wire and a great
dig by captain Erika Chidester kept game
point alive for the 49ers to close out Utah
State.
The
49ers withstood a poor performance in the
second game, a game in which the team was
unable to hit past the big block of the
Aggies who had six team blocks in the game.
Seemingly every time a 49er would try for
a kill Utah State had two women at the net
to stop the spike resulting in a terribly
low -.125 hitting percentage in the game.
After
the second game it was all 49ers as the
team rolled through the next two games to
take the match. Despite allowing five more
team blocks in the third game The Beach
managed to hit a respectable .243.
49er
head coach Brian Gimmillaro cited a good
serving strategy of hitting serves to certain
areas at certain times and with certain
speed and finishing each game strong as
the reason for the victory.
Chidester
led the way for the 49ers with a game-high
20 kills including several impressive spikes
from the back row while Liz Hudson recorded
another double-double with 17 kills and
10 digs.
In
Friday night's match the 49ers took care
of the Vandals (13-9, 4-7) of the University
of Idaho, 3-1 (30-28, 30-17, 22-30, 30-26).
The
49ers were led by Hudson who had a career
high 22 kills and added 15 digs in the match
the Vandals had a six-match winning streak
prior to its encounter with The Beach at
The Pyramid.
The
Beach used a well rounded attack to end
the Vandals win streak with Chidester having
15 kills and 10 digs for her ninth double-double
of the season while the youngsters, red
shirt freshman Robin Miramontes and true
freshman Natalie Uhart and Mariko Crum each
had 10 kills for the 49ers.
The
49ers will play again next Saturday on the
road versus UC Irvine, a team that after
a strong start in the conference has dropped
four of its last five conference matches.
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