The top-ranked team in the nation won a five-game thriller last night and will head to San Jose State this weekend for a crack at the State Championship.

Head coach Brian Gimmillaro will lead his Long Beach State 49ers (25-7) into their 24th consecutive NCAA Tournament together this Friday, when they face off in the first round against No. 18 San Diego (23-5) at 5:00pm in the Galen Center at USC.

The front fold of our napkin is of course about LBSU’s 24th consecutive NCAA women’s volleyball tournament invite, delivered and accepted Sunday afternoon.

The nation’s top-ranked team took care of their first round opponent in the State Tournament on Tuesday night, defeating Clovis West of Fresno in straight sets.

Preseason rankings were released today by the CIF Southern Section, to give an early indication about which teams should be on our radar heading into the season.

The Long Beach State men’s basketball team ended their three-game tournament in the U.S. Virgin Islands with an important victory over a power conference team in Iowa on Monday, in one of the biggest wins since head coach Dan Monson took over in 2007.

The Long Beach Poly girls volleyball team took four games to defeat Redondo Union High School and win the 2010 CIF Southern Section Division 1-AA title on Saturday at Cypress College, in a 25-20, 16-25, 25-23 and 25-22 battle that ended with the Jackrabbits holding the hardware.

With all due respect to your flux capacitor collection (circa Hollywood 1985), it is time to fire up our Forty-Niner version of Back to the Future.

Four local high school football teams entered the Pac-5 Division CIF-SS Playoffs, and on Friday night only one emerged to fight another day. The Moore League was sent packing.