49ers show no manners on road, make it six straight wins

By Moria Khou
Online Forty-Niner
Staff Writer

The 49ers were rude guests on its first out-of-state trip of the season as they defeated Idaho on Thursday and Utah State on Saturday.

The women's volleyball team's road trip to Moscow, Idaho was made a lot easier as the Vandals (14-7, 6-5 Big West) self destructed to give the 49ers (17-4, 9-4 Big West) the victory in four games (27-30, 30-23, 30-27, 30-28).

"We stuck to the game plan but I think we lost focus at a certain point in the match," Idaho's Head Coach Debbie Buchanan said. "Against a good team you can't do that."
Idaho looked promising early on as the Vandals outscored the 49ers 19-16 to win Game One after the score was tied, 1-1.

Long Beach State regrouped from the early loss behind freshman Alexis Crimes' 19 kills to take games two and three.

The Vandals made one last effort in Game Four as they took an early 10-4 lead. However, the home team wasn't able to sustain the lead as Idaho committed 12 errors and hit a match low .100 percent in the final game to give Long Beach State the victory.

"We went through a stretch where we had too many errors and we have to do better than that," Buchanan said. "We just need to be consistent for longer stretches."

Freshman Kati Tikki of Idaho led all players with a game-high 22 kills. Senior Sarah Meek posted 15 kills while Brooke Haeberle contributed 14 kills.

Two Vandals finished with double-digits in digs, Meghan Brown with 23 and Mandy Becker with 17.

Redshirt freshman Makini Thompson had significant playing time for The Beach and made the most of it as she established a career high in kills with 18.

Both Robin Miramontes and Jillian Mazzarella recorded double-doubles in the match. Miramontes posted 14 kills to go with 10 digs, while Mazzarella logged a match high with 59 assists and 18 digs.

Long Beach State rolled onward to Logan, Utah to go heads up against the Aggies. Saturday's match turned out to be no contest as the 49ers put away the Aggies in 1 hour, 20 minutes in front of a crowd of only 300 to win in straight sets (30-16, 30-21, 30-28).

Utah State (7-13, 3-9 Big West) had one of its worst hitting performances of the season with a .065 attack percentage in the first game. The Aggies total hitting for the match wasn't much better as the team combined for .075 percent. Setter Zuzana Cernianska was the only player to hit over .200 percent for Utah State, while six of her teammates dropped below .100 in attack percentage.

Freshman Amanda Orgill led the Aggies with 11 kills. Cernianska recorded 31 assists as Kelsi Thoman went down for 20 digs.

Just as Utah State had only one player with double-digit kills, Robin Miramontes was the lone 49er in double-digits with a game-high of 16 kills.

Mazzarella finished with another double-double performance for the second straight game, 44 assists and 12 digs. Heather Laudato led all players with 26 digs.

With the victory over Utah State, Long Beach State has a modest six-game win streak. The 49ers are also hoping to break back into the American Volleyball Coaches Association top-25 poll (AVCA/CSTV) and Volleyball Magazine's top-20. Long Beach State last appeared in the AVCA poll on Oct. 4.

The 49ers return home to host UC Irvine Saturday at 7 p.m. in The Pyramid.