Long Beach State Notebook: Men's volleyball ready for familiar foe

Some teams might have trepidation about facing the No. 1-ranked team in the country, but not the Long Beach State men’s volleyball team. The No. 4-ranked 49ers will play top-ranked BYU on Thursday at Pe State in the NCAA Final Four and coach Alan Knipe says his team is fired up for the opportunity.

“The guys are excited about it; I’m sure BYU is excited about it,” he said. “I would guess they’ve been preparing for us for a week or so and we’ve been doing the same.”

The two teams played back-to-back matches at The Walter Pyramid this season,with the Cougars wiing the Friday match and the 49ers coming back and sweeping on Saturday.

“When we played the way we wanted to, we had a real nice match against them the second night,” Knipe said. “We also had the reality of the night before, when we lost. That’s how an NCAA semifinal should be, with two good teams pitted against each other.”

First serve is scheduled for 3 p.m. and the match will be streamed live for free on NCAA.com.

— Mike Guardabascio

Baseball

It will be difficult for the Dirtbags (26-17, 9-6 Big West) to maintain momentum in Hawaii this weekend as they try to stay in the top three in the Big West standings. Hawaii (18-23, 7-8) has picked up 11 of its wins at home. Hawaii shortstop Jacob Sheldon-Collins leads the conference with a .411 batting average. The senior also has 23 runs scored and 22 RBIs.

Women’s teis

Junior Maeva Razakasoa got two pieces of good news on Wednesday. The Cranves-Sales, France native will play in the Division I singles championships and was named Big West Player of the Year for the second time. She won the honor as a freshman and is just the eighth player in conference history and the second player in program history to win the award multiple times. Haah Grady won it four times.

The touament will be held May 25-30 at the Case Teis Center in Tulsa, Okla. and will follow the team touament.

Razakasoa, ranked No. 82 in ITA Division I singles rankings, is the first LBSU player in the touament since current assistant coach Anais Dallara played in 2012. She is the fifth singles invitee in 49er history.

Senior Ebba Unden eaed All-Big West honors for the fourth time in her career with a second team nod and Julie Gerard and Hayley Thompson were both named honorable mention. It’s the third consecutive year that Gerard has received the honor and the second consecutive year for Thompson.

Thompson was selected to first team doubles with partner Laura Eales after being nationally ranked for most of the season. The team of Razakasoa and Gerard was selected to the second team.

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Women’s water polo

Six 49ers were named to the All-Big West team on Wednesday, setting a school record. Five players made the team last year. Senior goaltender Alexis Butler and sophomore Virginia Smith were first team selections, freshman Tori Morrissey was second team and senior Jessica Brooks and sophomores Emily Garczynski and Alexandra Massier eaed honorable mention honors.

Butler had career highs in minutes played (686), goals given up (152) and saves (161). She also had 26 saves in the first three conference matches of the season. Smith, who led LBSU with a career-high 45 goals, scoring in 26 of 29 matches, is the first LBSU sophomore to be named to the first team. Morrissey, who scored 40 goals, is the first freshman to be named to the second team since LBSU joined the conference.

— JJ Fiddler contributed to this report