LOS ANGELES — The Long Beach State men’s volleyball team sent a message to defending national champion UCLA last week. Top-ranked LBSU hammered that point home again on Wednesday night, defeating the third-ranked Bruins for the second time in six days with a sweep at Pauley Pavilion.
Daniil Hershtynovich had 11 kills to pace a Long Beach attack that hit .442 in a 25-23, 25-19, 25-23 victory. Skyler Varga had nine kills, while Moni Nikolov added seven kills and three blocks and Sotiris Siapanis had seven kills for unbeaten LBSU (10-0).
Cooper Robinson had a match-high 16 kills and hit at a .542 clip to pace UCLA (6-3), which hit .361 in defeat. Andrew Rowan added 31 assists and six digs.
LBSU won in four sets on its home court Friday night, and the teams that squared off in the NCAA championship match last May were competitive again.
Long Beach held a 12-10 lead in the opening set, but UCLA surged to an 18-15 advantage. Long Beach answered with four straight points to regain the lead on a double block from Hershtynovich and Lazar Bouchkov that led to a UCLA timeout. The Bruins retook the lead at 22-21, but a 3-0 run gave Long Beach a set point and a UCLA mishit ended it.
Long Beach raced to a 7-2 lead in the second set. A Bouchkov ace gave the visitors a 15-11 advantage, then Bouchkov added two more during another surge and Long Beach closed out the set.
Nikolov, the Division I leader in aces per set who had seven in last week’s victory over the Bruins, logged his first of the rematch to get things going for Long Beach in the third set. Robinson answered with UCLA’s only ace of the night for a 5-3 Bruins lead, and his back-to-back kills gave UCLA a 10-7 advantage.
UCLA led 15-12 at the media timeout, but Long Beach found momentum and knotted the score at 18-all on a Nikolov kill. Another three-point run gave LBSU a 21-19 lead, but a McQuiggan kill got UCLA within one. A service error ultimately gave the visitors a match point at 24-22, and a statement kill from Siapanis finished off the sweep.
It was Long Beach State’s first sweep of the Bruins since Feb. 11, 2022 and its first sweep at UCLA since Jan. 19, 2019.