12:00pm | At the men’s volleyball post game social Saturday night Coach Andy Read had the floor and then said “ok let’s have all the seniors stand up.” They creaking of the knees of the fandom began to sound off in unison before the non-players finally figured out Coach was talking about the senior class of the 49er volleyball team not their assembled fans.

It ain’t much but that’s my segue into the performance last week of the senior class athletes of LBSU. Two Big West records were set by TJ Robinson and Casper Ware (BWC POW again) of basketball but if you were in Davis for the game you wouldn’t know by the cold shoulder that the Aggie game staff gave the two new records.

For the record, double intender, T.J. Robinson became the all-time leading rebounder in Big West Conference history, while Casper Ware set a new Long Beach State career assist record. Ware also scored a career-high 38 points the night before in the Pacific win, turning around a dismal five point effort in his last home game, CSUN.

As impressive as those records were, perhaps the biggest senior moment t came on the road at #1 CSUN when Senior Tipesa Moorer of the long suffering women’s basketball bunch scored a team-high 19 points while leading the 49ers to a 75-72 road win over Cal State Northridge in double overtime. Except for a W over Columbia in New York last fall, it was the first away victory for the Beach and is well timed since the team has a pair of home games this week, vs. UC Davis Thursday and Pacific (Breast Cancer Awareness Night) Saturday at 4 p.m.

Last add, in the CSUN win the 49ers snapped a nine-game road losing streak, and that will make the bus ride home a lot more pleasant. Ditto the bus ride back from Fresno when the Beach softball opened the Bulldog tourney beating Sacramento State, 4-2 behind Erin Jones-Wesley (she went 3-0 during the Tournament) then without an ailing Taylor Petty lost to Toledo, 4-2. Petty missed the trip with pneumonia so Kim Sowder broke in a freshmen or two and but LB got the payback behind Erin whipping Toledo, 5-1, then played in an observer’s word, awful in a mercy rule loss to North Dakota State, 8-0 but the bus was gleeful after an St. Germain’s three run homer beat host Fresno State, 4-1 in extras. Except for the romp over Davis (wire to wire 89-69) , the Beach boys have a pattern of playing it fairly close, they have a dozen Big West wins but half of them have been by 10 points or less. Their success Saturday in that 18,000 or so in Omaha will depend on how many of those 50-50 balls Coach Monson’s kids can get away from Creighton. It is on TV ESPN 2 at 7 pm so you can still do all the other stuff, like joining Rita Jones and posse for her alma matetr’s hockey game with Michigan at Legends, the first part of baseball with VCU and then game tracking the rest of the Beach sporting menu. (See This Week in LBSU Athletics elsewhere in sports).

EXTRA DUSTING 

Assuming they win the league title (they are locked despite games with CSUF and UCSB) their Honda Center opener will be UC Davis (2-22) then two more games the next two nights. However, if you are USC that sounds okay since the Trojans would have to win four nights in a row.

Men’s volleyball finishes this week on Friday with No. 14 UC Santa Barbara but the lads still have a hangover a nail-biting loss to No. 4 Stanford, 3-2 and then a stumbling effort against 15 Pacific, 3-1.

No. 38 Women’s Tennis (3-1, 1-0 Big West) got great work from their home grown star — #122 Rachel Manasse, where she went 4-0 on the week without losing a single set. The team lost to No. 75 Wyoming 4-3 but smacked Pacific 7-0.

Baseball opens the season with Virginia Commonwealth Friday through Sunday and on the field the Rams catcher Taylor Perkins is a real stud, who played all over the field for two seasons before becoming the everyday catcher in 2011; hit .320/.401/.467, team-high 4 HR’s last year. Off the field VCU has three guys with LBSU connections, former #2 SAR fixture David Benedict and two of AD Vig Cegles kids, Vic Jr. who runs the Ram Fund and Casey who heads corporate sales. Ram basketball by the way also made the Bracket Buster TV card with their game against Northern Iowa

In a season where little has gone wrong for boys’ basketball some hard core fans have complained about the relative inaccuracy in the free throw shooting. This was a point of contention from the former first lady of LBSU Dr. Sylvia Maxson. “Well Dan” she would offer in her southern drawl. “They are free”. But not cheap. The team average is .668 and Eugene Phelps is a mere .466.

That brings up our closing quotes from the wise guys on the web. “Before going to sleep each night, visualize yourself shooting and making the shot….Believe it: Some of the players (those struggling most often from the FT line) were honest/open to say they tried it and not visualize themselves making the shot! They were seeing bricks!”

Need more, a second suggestion, also from the web board: “…take 3 dribbles instead of 2. Stand up, straighter and then bend when you shoot…point the index finger up on release, heck point your middle finger on release and I’ll take it as acknowledgement of this advice. “ Me too.