In a classic Jim Healy moment the late sports radio king caught the silver tongued Tommy Lasorda exhorting that “this job is not this [expletive] easy!” F-bombs aside, the week that was in 49er-ville is evidence that sports writing is not easy.
Dirtbag baseball (18-19, 9-3 Big West) is exhibit one. The week began with an error filled loss to Loyola Marymount, 4-3 on Tuesday and then followed playing the role of the dead cowboy in the UC Irvine, 4-0 no hit game. So all is lost and the season is over. Not so fast my friends. The Beach boys would rise from the grave to win the series whipping the marsupials 4-3 on Saturday and 5-4 on Sunday and go back to sharing first place in the Big West with Fullerton.
The prize for LBSU (15-15, 10-12 MPSF) finishing sixth in the MPSF volleyball turned into a trip to former #1 BYU at altitude to a team with attitude. The Beach was down two games to none and ready to be written off when Andy Read’s lads battled back to tie the match at 2-2 before falling short in game five in front of 2300 or so. Injured Niner star Jim Baughman tossed away his various ills to post a team-high 15 kills.
Last month in softball LBSU (20-22, 8-4 Big West) had formulae of dominance by Erin Jones-Wesley and relief from whomever. Last weekend somebody flipped the script as Taylor Petty for the Sat5udday win over Cal State Northridge, 4-3 while EJW lost 2-1. Series tied at 1-1 Petty gets roughed up early for four scores and it is Erin to the rescue in relief and beats Northridge, 9-4. Bree Stephan hit .556 (5-of-9) to lead the 49ers into a four-way first-place tie atop the Big West standings with three weeks to play.
Need more, No. 54 Women’s Tennis (15-5, 8-0 Big West) had already clinched the BWC title and top seed but still had a non-conference deal to at No. 34 Pepperdine. Just cruise to a loss, nah, this job ain’t that easy, so Long Beach State won for the first time in 20 attempts against Pepperdine, upsetting the Waves 5-2 in Malibu.
And finally Sand Volleyball (6-4) leaves mid week for Gulf Shores, Alabama who has bought the right to host the first final four in that sport. The Niners then went out and tuned up by toasting Hawaii 4-1. They play top ranked Florida State in the first Sand Volleyball national championships this weekend.
Napkins Noted
F-Bombs (not to be confused with those massive home runs that Cal Poly launched against Cal Fullerton) are hard to avoid with all the camera phones, social media and moving mikes. They didn’t have all that in the days of former and fiery LBSU coach Seth Greenberg who was cut loose by Virginia Tech Monday; he had just one NCAA tourney in his nine years in Blacksburg. Ironically it was in the same Columbus regional that Long Beach played in during Wayne Morgan’s final season. Hokie insiders say that the timing of the firing looks poorly for the VT administration. “The administration knew six weeks ago that their season was over. No new information has occurred since then that would affect the decision either way. If you were going to fire him, you should have done it a month ago when you would have more options for coaches to hire and he would have had more options of places to go.”
My Sunday Blair highlight (besides the final score) was the Beats parking lot tailgate. I snuck in behind Adam Zunino and Doug Shea and the grub by Nichelle and Mark was superb: burger with two slices of nutty-sweet swiss cheese, fresh lettuce, tomato, and BBQ sauce on a giant bun (the extra lettuce went home with another of the Los Alamitos crew Dave who has a new turtle named “Knucklehead” but the desert tortoise actually likes a fresh hibiscus blossom over the green stuff.)
On the field skipper Buckley said the key to the Friday flat line was Andrew Thurman’s fast ball command, “On both sides of the plate. I told our guys that they needed to be able to do that themselves.” The kids listened and the firm of Strufing and Matt Johnson did so on Saturday and Stewart, Maciel and Friedrich’s the same on Sunday. Brennan Metzger also played huge defensively (note the bay-full stares of Mike Gillespie) with nine circus level catches in the three games. Oh, yes, and more doubles (three on Sunday) than In ‘n Out at dinner hour…once more with Metz. Buck says he is fine with Brennan calling off his other outfielders, “We figure he can play foul line to foul line… And I told Josh Guerra (RF) that there is a big body of water out there and he needs to let the centerfielder play there.” Matt Duffy also has come back to life with glove and bat and had a GWRBI on his report card. Super stat scribe Bob Keisser says the team turn around dated back to game one at Wichita State (8-7 loss) a month ago. Next is a weekend at CSUN and yes I am guilty of asking Buck if he was ready to talk about sharing first place — he declined but I will ask again.
Tailgate confessions…”I have yet to evince the will to resist all processed sugar. Evidence of the negative effects of processed sugar is legion and uncontroverted — and mounting seemingly by the day — and no doctor will ever advocate the consumption of processed sugar as a path to better health.” From our LB Post consumption editor.
Softball got another hitter in the mix, Ashlynn Booker went 2-for-4- with four RBI while Erin Jones-Wesley didn’t allow a hit in 5.1 innings of relief putting that 9-4 loss on CSUN in the rubber match of their three-game series at Matador Diamond on Sunday. The four-way tie for first place in the Big West Conference standings includes Pacific, UC Santa Barbara and UC Davis and likely only the champ gets and NCAA invite. (Same for baseball unless the remarkable happens.) On the soft side Long Beach State returns to action next Saturday and Sunday when the 49ers host UC Riverside in a three-game series. The two teams play a doubleheader on Saturday and a single game on Sunday with action starting both days at 1 p.m.
A decent payday ($9,100 5th place) for Misty and Kerri in Brazil. The golden girls have already qualified, point wise, for Olympics, as USA #1 team. Everybody else is going for #2, which will be Kessy/Ross, unless some other team overtakes, point wise. Next event, Sanya, China. Main draw starts Thursday with Finals Sunday 4/29; 15 hours ahead of Long Beach time.
Back to the theme—in the post game scramble of parents, base running kids, media, and grounds crew in their “let’s get home frenzy–the sports reporting job got tough again…due to a Game Tracker error the score of the CSUF and Cal Poly game was offered incorrectly, saying that the Mustangs had ridden the elephant…not true, but temporarily giving the Niners BWC first place all alone…confusion then a correction…
Closing quote also from VB, the boss Brian Gimmillaro. “We feel so fortunate and excited to represent our university at the First Ever NCAA Sand Volleyball Final Four. We are also grateful that the University consented to give the opportunity for our women to compete this season. This is a difficult financial time for budgets at the state university level. What we presented as a staff to the university is that we would coach the team for free with an understanding that we would have no scholarship money and no operating budget.” Good news, some nice community donations from the Century Club and others.