NINERS REFLECT ON THE WEEK THAT WAS AND THE WEEK THAT WILL BE
Long Beach State took the air out of that oblate spheroid known as a football way back in the last century (1991) but the round balls the Beach kids play with these days don’t always bounce in a predictable fashion. Case in point, this weekend there was good news and bad news.
The good news was far from home in NorCal where the ‘Niners ladies of soccer, (losers by a flukey goal to first place Irvine on October 21) now are looking at a November to remember beginning at 3:00pm Thursday as a semi-final round host to Northridge in the Big West tournament. Yes, that is the same Matador entry that was tough as nails in a 2-1 loss to the Beach on October 24th. On that afternoon Mauricio Ingrassia’s troops needed senior day goals from seniors Bo Rael and Lindsay Bullock and a 51st minute offside on CSUN to set up a chance play them again in the semis and earn a rematch with the always chippy Eaters of Irvine in a Sunday final.
The win that was vital to that scenario was played out in the mid-fifties chill of Stockton where the dynamic duo of scoring leaders, Nadia Link (8 goals) and Lindsay Bullock (7 goals), provided the offense and reliable goalie Emily Kingsborough pulled the teeth from the Pacific Tigers 2-0. On Sunday at UC Davis the ‘Niners (12-5-2 overall, 5-2-1 Big West) fell 1-0 with a sort of rest-the-regulars lineup after they clinched semifinal hosting.
Goalie Kingsborough got the afternoon but 16 players got work. LB had eight corner kicks and outshot Davis 23-10 but made no connections. The LB game was physical with 17 ‘Niner fouls to just eight for the Aggies.
The other post season dreams come out of volleyball where insiders worry that this may be the rare year when the Big West has been beaten each up so much that the league could get only one NCAA bid. I don’t buy that scenario and if you go ahead and lock up the automatic bid for Fullerton you would think that the tradition-rich Beach should get in on style and legacy points (plus the LB sweethearts of spike swept CSUF this season). The Titans and ‘Niners are travel partners with both teams playing up the coast at Pacific and Davis this weekend, at home to take on CSUN and Riverside, and then wrap up the conference schedule with contests against so-so CSUN and woeful and leaderless Irvine (Coach Paula Weishoff is on a mysterious three-week leave). If the ‘Niners win out and Fullerton stumbles once, then, via tiebreaker, LBSU gets the automatic NCAA invite.
The drama of last weekend took place outside of the gym and of all places in the campus health center. Janisa Johnson, like many other CSULB students, had some flu symptoms, went to the health center for a sore throat and then fainted, hitting her noggin on a table, floor or some sort of hard object. Without Janisa available, Coach Gimmillaro passed on the notion of just moving setter-hitter-blocker Ashley Lee into Johnson’s spot and using talented freshman Ashley Vazquez as setter in favor of a domino rotation of good but green folks like Sarah Clause, Jocelyn Neely, and Meagan Johnson etc. A couple of suspect calls along with the chaos from a new line-up led to a 3-1 defeat.
That brought up the Saturday night visit from veteran coach Kathy “The Queen” Gregory (36th year and almost Medicare-eligible), who read the press reports and figured her side could beat the Beach as they did up in Goleta. That might have happened except that at 6:00pm Johnson passed a couple of concussion pop quizzes and returned the Niners to normalcy and the Goleta gang was Gone-Leta with their postseason hopes packed in the baggage bay of their big blue bus. Johnson, just a 5-7 sophomore, contributed with nine kills, eight digs and was in on three blocks and Vazquez (possibly suffering with a bad back) just brought water bottles to her teammates.
‘Nuff of the present, we have been asked to send out a mark-your-calendar note for Homecoming 2010 on Saturday, November 13 in the Walter Pyramid parking lot which starts at 12:30pm and has the usual assortment of events like “delicious barbecue,” entertainment from the Elm Street Band, (if you are over 39 just grab the old bongo drums from the garage and tell the stage manager you thought this was a reunion concert), gator ‘rassling (maybe), a historical gallery (maybe with the Elm Streeters as youth), the mobile science museum and a Beach Pride Zone. Oh yes, live sports with the season opener of 49ers mens basketball playing #25 ranked San Diego State at 4:05pm.
There is no wagering allowed but the Monson Player Maniacs have looked strong in some secret scrimmages, especially last weekend against regular San Diego, especially Larry Anderson, T.J. Robinson and Eugene Phelps. The media day pick to win the league was UCSB with LBSU in second. On the ladies side, Jody Wynn’s wounded warrior project still has six or so athletes in their MASH Unit. You can take a look for yourself on Saturday at 4:00pm when they have an exhibition contest with Cal Poly Pomona. The BWC media pre-season picked the Lady ‘Niners seventh.
Last of upcoming stuff for the weekend. Oscar Hernandez and the Pyramid support staff will be busy again first setting up the Pyramid for the annual Black ‘ n Gold Intra-squad volleyball game Friday at 5:00pm in the Pyramid then back to the basketball set up for the Saturday game. The volleyball lads went 3-2 last weekend beating UCSB, UOP and CSUN in their exhibition work but losing to USC, UCLA and the Obama motorcade.