Late in the third set, Long Beach State junior Naomi Washington glided to her right, cranked back her right arm—like an old school pitching machine—and palmed a fastball back at a Cal State Northridge player. In self-defense, the Matador put her hands up only to see the ball sail out of bounds. It reminded me of the Mortal Kombat video game, when you beat your opponent and got to “finish him” by dropping a fatality move. Washington’s kill—figuratively speaking—finished off the 3-0 (25-18, 25-21, 25-21) win for the ‘Niners.

The victory comes ten days after the last game for Long Beach State (12-3, 2-1), who displayed their versatility and depth against a pedestrian Northridge squad (5-13, 0-5). Caitlin Ledoux led the ‘Niners with ten kills on the night while Washington added eight and had a .375 hit percentage. Senior Nicole Vargas had a double-double with 29 assists and 10 digs for ‘Niners.

Northridge did hang tough throughout the match—especially in a first set that saw 13 ties before the ‘Niners went on a 8-1 run to close the set out.

Long Beach State stayed hot in the second set, hitting .359 as a team before taking the third set in large part due to a solid defensive performance led by the front line of Washington, Quincy Verdin, Brittney Herzog and even the 5’8” Vargas, who got in the mix with a memorable block of her own. Head Coach Brian Gimmillaro said he liked the defensive performance of his squad, which finished with 14 blocks in the match (Northridge only had 3).

Long Beach State faithful might have noticed two faces that haven’t seen too much paying time in previous matches in Herzog (four kills) and Nicole Moore (four kills).  Coach Gimmillaro sent out a myriad of different rotations to the floor, just to put it into the back of future opponents’ minds that this team is deep and can play different styles of volleyball.  “Friday we play [no. 22 Cal Poly] and we gave them a lot more things to look at—you know what I mean,” Coach Gimmillaro said after the win.

Yes, coach we know what you mean, “a lot” of different looks and lineups that would’ve needed a pitch count clicker to tally. In fact, Long Beach State played well in the last portion of the match with a smaller lineup consisting of Herzog, Ledoux, Vargas, Cat Highmark, Iris Murray and Lauren Minkel—before Washington came in and sent Northridge packing.

Like coach said, the ‘Niners will square up against the nationally ranked Mustangs Friday in a match-up of Big West heavyweights.

“The bigger the game, the more fun they are,” he said flashing that famous Gimmillaro smirk.