7:00am | If you are tracking the week that was in Beach sports and wondering about the week that will be you’ve come to the right page. You can get the cold hard facts anywhere, but this is Dust Plus and we try and put some extra salsa on your chips. As usual, we start the week with a ration of review and a portion of preview with a 49er focus on volleyball and soccer.
The volleyball youngsters showed their age on the road in Austin, TX. In the Time Warner Invitational, the 49ers won their Friday warm-up over Florida A&M (3-1) but got gored on Saturday by an angry herd of Texas Longhorns (2-3). It was a big weekend for the Texans, who worked overtime to collect the program’s 1,000th victory, a night after being swept by Illinois.
The size and savvy of Texas (and perhaps secrets whispered by former 49er Assistant and now Texas strategist Brian Hosfeld) would eventually prevail and help the Horns to #1,000, a milestone that LBSU passed in 2008. The Horns jumped out fast with relatively easy wins in games one and two. Finally the finesse of junior Caitlan Ledoux and the ice-water work of sophomore Janisa Johnson steadied the Beach. In game three, improved effort by Dallas-born Michelle Osunbor (plugged on the UT webcast as a “true Texan) won the game 25-16. In game four a phantom touch got Brian’s attention and stopped a Beach run but Ledoux and Haleigh Hampton sapped the Horns energy and got the match to 2-2 with a 25-20 win. Game five had short runs both ways but a tape-trickler fell for UT to get them ahead 5-3, then a stuff block by the bigger-than-life Horns (a frontline at times of 6-2, 6-2, 6-3 and 6-5) captured the flag.
Next up Texas heads to Gainesville, FL where a swamp full of top five volleyball blue-bloods await—Stanford, Penn State and the host Gators. Long Beach meanwhile will study the tale of the video tape before Friday and Saturday night home court dates against San Diego (18-7 last season and featuring coaching by ex-Niner All-American Brent Hilliard) followed Saturday at 7:00pm playing ACC v-ball wannabe Virginia (12-19 in 2009).
For the two all-conference LBSU MIAs, Jocelyn Neeley was missed at Texas and likely has more time on the DL but there is hope that junior setter Ashley Lee may have fixed fingers by this weekend.
The soccer set meanwhile enjoyed the home cooking and continued excellence of their second half offense in a 2-1 Friday win over Utah State, but suffered a 0-0 tie to Sacramento State on Sunday after Chantal Hubbard was red carded and the Niners had to kill 50 minutes (last 30 of regulation and two 10 minute overtimes) a player down. Appropriately, the Beach plays on George Allen Field named in honor of the American football coaching legend who last whistled for real some 20 years ago (urban legend has it that he died of pneumonia after a end of season celebration when his LBSU team beat UNLV which caused a cold he couldn’t shake). George would die on New Years Eve 1990.
Back to the result, it was pretty much the type of defense that Coach Allen would have loved, but the rough and tumble variety had the soccer fans howling. Asked on Friday whether or not he had dark thoughts trailing Utah State one-zip at halftime, ‘Niner skipper Mauricio Ingrassia rolled his eyes and said, “Yes…” Long Beach State (4-1-1) is back on the road next week as it heads north for games at Saint Mary’s (which Chantal must miss on Friday) and at No. 21 California on Sunday.
We close with a bit of baseball to keep a log on your hot stove league fire, leading off with this e-mail from long time Press-Telegram baseball beat writer Gordie Verrell. We sent Gordie a clip of Rick Monday rescuing the American flag from burning by some chumps in Chicago. “I’d never seen that particular clip. Yeah, I was there that day, and I was in Chicago later that year …when Al Campanis presented the actual flag to Moe in a pregame salute at Wrigley Field.” Gordie is now a gentlemen farmer (translated—he has a riding lawn mower) in Newport News, Virginia.
Finally we have a couple of Left-Overs from last week. Yes, the Missy White who played volleyball for St. Mary’s is the daughter of former 49er John White, who was the last of the great two-sport stars for the Beach, basketball and then baseball back in 1977-1980. From ladies basketball, boss Jody Wynn (waiting with her daughters to get their soccer posters signed) on the impact of the new Rec and Wellness palace on recruiting: “It gives us a real wow factor and says that we are becoming a 24-7 campus.” Same topic, this from All-American alum Ed Ratleff on his thoughts when he saw the 125,000-sq. foot, $70 million dollar building, “Gosh, is this Ohio State?” And that’s the only mention that OSU will get from me this week.