10:30am | Today’s word of the weekend is “exhale”. And we can need a full dinner napkin to hold all of our notes from a weekend of mostly Ws.

The Emmy award goes to the “M’s”, Monson, Maniacs and the 49er Marketing posse.

You can read the Bracket Buster news elsewhere in this section, but the Beach boys worked hard to keep their unbeaten Big West mark alive and dreams of an invite to the Big Dance, aka the NCAA field of 68.

Last Thursday Casper Ware scored 11 of his team-high 18 points in overtime to lead the Niners to a 77-70 Big West Conference win at UC Riverside including dodging a free throw bullet that could have cost them in regulation. Ware opened OT with a 3-pointer one minute and 12 seconds into the action and then quick silver new comer James Ennis, who finished with 16 points and four steals, hit a three of his own. That result set up a Saturday TV date at home vs. some outfit called Fullerton. For that game it was more of what the web guys call James “The Menace” Ennis (13 of his team-high 19 points in the final 7:03 of the game plus two steals and two blocks) as LBSU covered the number and beat CSUF 75-61 in front of a rambunctious Walter Pyramid record crowd of 5,649.

Ennis, who tied a career high in scoring, hit back-to-back crucial baskets in a 50 second span to break a pair of tie scores late in the game. Ennis’ first hoop came on a pull-up jumper to give LBSU a two-point lead with 7:03 to play. After the Titans tied it at the other end, Ennis hit -6 shooting. Ennis led LBSU with four early points, while Anderson had three as the 49ers took an 11-9 lead into the first TV timeout.

Omondi Amoke (20 points/7 rebounds) and D.J. Seeley kept the Titans close early scoring 13 of CSF’s first 16 points over the opening 8:10 of the game. Amoke led the way with eight on 4-of-5 shooting allowing Fullerton to trail by just one, 17-16 but eventually both Titan aces fouled out. The double win was nice and the team got some days off since they don’t play again until Saturday when the 49ers host Cal State Northridge at 7:30 p.m.

DUST STORMS — Great crowd for the Baseball leadoff dinner where alum Andrew Gagnon made a surprise donation and, as expected, Danny Espinosa gave a great talk. Also met the replacement for the amazing trainer Shawna Horton who left for Cal and is replaced by Katie Davis, wife of a Rockies farmhand, catcher Lars Davis, and experienced at Vandy, Illinois, etc.

Lars was selected by the Colorado Rockies in the third round of the 2007 First-Year Player Draft out of the University of Illinois and courted his wife wearing what she said was a too heavy dose of Old Spice.

One of the best additions of this sporting year at the Beach is the young voices that deliver, via the web, the words eye view of the various sports. Rob Brender gets a lot of “bang” for his MBB broadcasts, Sean Pellerin has the MVB assignment, David Bagga is the upbeat talent selling you WBB and Dirtbag baseball uses a three man rotation of Christian Hartnett, Anthony Masterson, and Francisco Rivera. Nice work by all.

A lot of discussion about the juice that SDSU has in the BWC but remember that the commish, Dennis Farrell is an alum and Cal Poly athletics director Don Oberhelman, served as senior associate athletics director at SDSU before his appointment at Cal Poly.

Jody Wynn tries to pump up everybody associated with her women’s basketball team so at a recent reception she saluted a team of fairly short but very fit young men who are her practice opponents, legal and all with the NCAA. She asked one, “what do you like best about being one of the guys that plays against these young ladies?” The lad surveyed the assortment of blondes, brunettes, fit and lovely folks and said, “We like the priority registration that we get.” Ah yes, getting the right class at the right time is still a big deal.

For the really faithful Jody’s bunch does the at UCI and UCR road this week. Can’t make it—tune in Mr. Bagga.

Fan of ladies beach volleyball, join the crowd, the English politicians have bought almost twice the number of tickets for the sport – famous for its skimpy outfits – compared to the traditional athletics. Former Labour sports minister Gerry Sutcliffe asked officials if it was an oddity that government departments had bought 410 beach volleyball tickets, compared to just 246 for athletics.

But officials have insisted that there is an entirely innocent explanation for the disparity, claiming the decision was all about the timing of the events rather than an unhealthy interest in the outfits.

Jonathan Stephens, permanent secretary at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport explained that as the events mostly take place at the weekend, it would be more convenient for MPs diaries.

He said top sponsors could buy up to 13,500 tickets, but the Government had not taken up its full allocation, purchasing instead just 8,800 at a cost of £750,000.

Around 3,300 will be used for dignitaries, 2,000 will be given to local authorities while more than 2,000 are expected to be sold to staff involved with the Games.

Beach volleyball, which will be played at Horse Guards Parade, in the heart of Whitehall, became one of the fastest events to sell out at the Games.

Back to baseball the Beach scrimmaged this past weekend in front of mostly new families and old 49er faithfuls. In the Big West 2012 Coaches’ Poll the numbers lined up like this: 1. Cal State Fullerton 76; 2. UC Irvine 70 3. Long Beach State-58; 4. Cal Poly-54; 5. UC Riverside-44; 6. UC Santa Barbara-37; 7. Pacific-25; 8. UC Davis-23 and 9. Cal State Northridge-18

Yes the football version of the Rose Bowl 2012 is old news but how about the RB Intersectional Regatta earlier this month. Navy won and Stanford was second but your 49er team finished 8th in a big field. Only problem is convincing the scorekeepers that it is CSU LB, not CSU Long Island which they wrote. UCSB, UCI and a flotilla of millionaires all finished behind the Beach.

Congratulations to my former CSULB MPA student Gilbert LIvas who is off to a great start as City Manager of Downey. Lots of new commercial stuff but also underway on a new sports park.

Last add tennis, Long Beach State opened strong with a ho-hum 6-1 win over Loyola Marymount last weekend and he 49ers return to the Rhodes Tennis Center next Friday, when they host BYU at 2 p.m. Klaudia Malenovska with that leg race slowing her down is the only Niner that is struggling and the rest looks prime and fine. Expect the same this weekend but hopefully without the x-rated outbursts that one of the Lion players used in her three set loss. – DR. DAN