Long Beach State men's volleyball tops Stanford

The No. 2 Long Beach State men’s volleyball team defended its home court in style on Friday night, topping No. 6 Stanford in four sets behind an excellent team performance, dropping the first set but coming back to win 21-25, 25-18, 25-20, 25-23.

The Cardinal looked unstoppable in the first frame, as Long Beach had seven hitting errors and hit just .179. But the Beach led comfortably for most of the rest of the match, and were able to come through in the clutch even when Stanford made it close. T.J. DeFalco’s kill on match point so frustrated the Cardinal that Conrad Kaminski whipped off his jersey and spiked it on the court after the ball landed.

49ers head coach Alan Knipe said he’s glad that the early battles of the season are paying off for his team.

“You talk about how to get battle-tested and resilient, it’s playing BYU twice in 24 hours, it’s going five sets against UCLA and UC Santa Barbara in one week,” he said.

The Beach was led by Kyle Ensing’s 14 kills and eight digs, and DeFalco’s 14 kills.

Long Beach State (8-2, 5-2 MPSF) will host No. 9 Pepperdine in the Pyramid on Saturday night.

Boys basketball

ST. JOHN BOSCO 50, VILLAGE CHRISTIAN 47 >> J.J. Watson scored 19 points and Eduardo Dalla Torre added 12 points and 12 rebounds as the St. John Bosco boys basketball team defeated Sun Valley Village Christian in the Nike Extravaganza at Mater Dei High.

“These games are so hard,” Braves coach Matt Dunn said. “It’s in the middle of league and you don’t have a lot of time to prepare, but we took better shots in the second half.”

Bosco (17-7) trailed Village Christian (18-8) 29-17 at half, but outscored the Crusaders 21-8 in the third to take a 39-38 lead into the fourth.

The Braves fell behind 42-41 with under three minutes to play before two straight baskets from Makani Whiteside and a layup from JoJo Bush made it a 47-42 lead with 1:30 to play.

Bosco struggled to close the game out, but two free throws from Nikko Hall with 7.8 seconds left sealed the win for the Braves.

— Devin Ugland

LONG BEACH POLY 58, CABRILLO 51 >> On senior night, the Jackrabbits overcame a sluggish start to top Cabrillo and take sole possession of first place in the Moore League.

MILLIKAN 57, COMPTON 51 >> The upset win for the Rams knocks Compton out of a first place race with the Jackrabbits, as 15 points from Millikan’s Justin Chambers helped carry the day.

Boys soccer

ST. ANTHONY 2, ST. PAUL 1 >> The Saints fell behind 1-0 in the 22nd minute on a goal from Alexander Corpus, but equalized on a rebound score from Tanner Bennett just 10 minutes later, as he slotted home a blocked PK. The teams battled for another 40 minutes before the Saints got the game-winner in the 76th minute on a score from Brian Zamora, who put home an assist from Brandon Smith. The win puts St. Anthony two games clear in first place in the Santa Fe League.

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Weaver donation

Long Beach State announced that Anaheim Angel and Dirtbag alum Jered Weaver donated $500,000 to the school’s baseball program, assisting with the renovations at Blair Field. “I never thought I’d be in this position to be able to give back to a team that did so much for me,” Weaver said in a statement. “There’s not an amount of money that I could give to show them how much I appreciate everything they did.”

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