In the post game press conference Saturday night I wasn’t getting the reaction I wanted from head coach Dan Monson about the work of his unusually named and unusually athletic point guard/scoring guard/assist making/ball stealing/dunking dynamo Casper Ware.
“I like Casper,” Monson said, finally smiling. “He’s my guy. He sets a great tone.”
We pick up the story line you need from the Post game report: “On the 49ers’ first possession in the second half, Ware nailed a fading 3-pointer in the corner right in front of the Long Beach bench. He then made another three, was fouled on a three attempt and made all free throws, and then made yet another three.” And then the little guy, a bragging height of 5’9″, went coast to coast with his steal, rose above the mania of a packed Pyramid, and dunked. Exclamation point, orange shirted vampires properly slain 75-60 at the whistle with nothing but Niner ir-regulars on the court.
How deep did Dan go down his bench? Well, his late game line-up of King, Chang, Jackson, Nevens and Starkey had a combined 176 minutes coming in as compared to 537 to 779 totals of each of the starting five. Nobody was convincing in the argument that the line change was any more than a symbolic back hand to an old foe that was clearly run out of town with their 4-5, 8-14 mark. Meanwhile, the regular season title moved even closer as the Beach upped their league leading record to 8-2 and 13-10 looking at a 12-day break and a mere six BWC games left. A solid finish to that movie would result in the regular season title, minimum of an NIT invite and the right to try for the NCAA automatic bid if there is enough life in the Long Beach legs to win three games in days with what is still suspect depth.
The early Saturday events on the home front also brought smiles to the 49er faces. With that I say don’t bet against the Long Beach State men’s volleyball team this year. Saturday afternoon, the scrappy 49ers closed their home stand at 4-0 by knocking off the defending champion Stanford Cardinal in a dominating sweep, 25-21, 25-21, 25-13, to improve to 6-3 overall, and 5-1 in the powerhouse MPSF conference. Long Beach finished with 10 team blocks to Stanford’s 4, and out hit them .291 to .021. LBSU will now spend eight or nine days working in practice mode before they hit the road for games against Cal State Northridge and UC Irvine.
Back to the names in the MVB news. In the volleyball recruiting world, the 49er faithful are pretty sure that the talent they need won’t come out of a JC program. Update: You haven’t seen the work of former LBCC heavy hitter Antwain Aguillard. Friday night, the jumping jack led the Beach to a shutout of Pacific with 12 kills (.611 hitting) a bunch of blocks and in the words of his coach Andy Read, “We do a couple of things with him, one is use him as a quick middle, just get the ball over and perhaps as important he really helps us play the long points.” Translated: Quick and no quit. And on Saturday, AA went to work on the Beach block and had six assists, still hit .364 and now has legit post season aspirations.
Back to baskets—After their long break, the Niners leave the LB library and lunch room for games at Davis and then CSUN, who gets up today in 2nd place in the BWC with a modest 5-3 conference record and losers overall at 8-13.
One more note from that Saturday night fever. With a little push from the coaching staff, the players went into the crowd to thank the 2,200 in the student section while Coach Monson did the PA play by play.
On to the bases, there was an overflow crowd at the Baseball Leadoff Dinner Thursday night, complete with renderings of proposed improvements to their newly leased property, the old and gracious Blair Field.
From the podium a couple of good nuggets, first of all the Beach now has an affirmed “swing coach” whose job it is to get balls in the gaps of the spacious and or cavernous corners of Blair Field. That would be Shawn Gilbert, who was up for a number of MLB teams and at times was like Buck in the Pirate organization. His family will stay in Fresno while Shawn coaches up the hitters under the guidance of Jesse Zepeda who comes to The Beach after spending seven seasons as an assistant coach at Cal Poly where, like his duties at LB, will be service as the hitting coach and recruiting coordinator. Buck praises him as a great addition to our staff. “His experience and knowledge of the Big West Conference and collegiate baseball on the West Coast is a tremendous asset in the recruiting and coaching arenas. He is an outstanding fit both professionally and personally, and we are excited for him and his family to join the Dirtbag family.” So there are two new guys devoted to offense. Amen.
MIXED DUST—The program raised $7000 via live auction bids for two Longoria jerseys! And a another $3800 from the silent auction. Nice cash coming in!!!!
The Bag brass is looking at a new closer, Austin Boyle. He checks in at 6’2″ and 195 with two letters in baseball at El Modena High School … Led the Vanguards to the Century League championship as a senior … Named the Century League Pitcher of the Year … Earned a first-team All-CIF nod as well … Threw 64.1 innings while posting a 2.28 ERA with 63 strikeouts … Also had a .336 batting average. So what do the players think of him? Well, hear from veteran Kirk Singer who said that Boyle “throws really hard but scares me because he closes his eyes just before he releases the baseball… I am a right handed hitter and well, that is scary…”
NUTTIN’ BUT NUMBERS—Hot off the LBSU press wire here are some points to ponder starting with the work of hoop impresario Casper Ware, who became just the 19th player in Niner lore to reach the 1,000-career point plateau during those twin wins, over Pacific, 67-66 and the SRO beat down of Fullerton, 75-60; Women’s Basketball (5-18, 3-7 BWC) beat Pacific, 73-60 but lost to CSUF 64-48 despite a great week by Courtney Jacob who averaged 21.5 ppg in the two contests; Men’s Volleyball (6-3, 5-1 MPSF) swept a pair in the MPSF over UOP and defending national champion Stanford, Antwain Aguillard averaged 2.83 kills per set while hitting .517 last week; Women’s Water Polo (0-1) lost at No. 4 UCLA 11-4.
This week is a blip in the schedule with no games for men’s basketball and just one for the ladies of hoop that being a visit from former coach Joan Bonvicini and her team from
Seattle University Friday, 7:00pm in the Pyramid. The rest of the calendar has Women’s Tennis at Fullerton Friday, at 1:30pm the touring up to Loyola Marymount Saturday at 11:00am; while Women’s Water Polo goes south for a Friday match with No. 18 UC San Diego and then faces No. 11 San Diego State on Saturday afternoon.
Finally, our closing number on the Chip for Cash golf alums is topped not by basketball season ticket holder Paul Goydos, $11,252 at Torrey Pines, but old senior tour skins star Mark O’Meara who split $300,000 with his partner Bernard Langer in Hawaii.