<\/p>\n
Down two sets to none, Long Beach State rallied with the help of a huge effort by Naomi Washington to defeat Tulane 17-25, 21-25, 25-21, 25-19, 15-11. Washington finished with a career-high 29 kills on .339 hitting to lead the 49ers in her home town of New Orleans.<\/p>\n
Down two sets to none and 2-0, the 49ers recovered to take a 6-3 lead in set three, their largest lead to that point, and the small rally helped bring about a change in the matches’ momentum which never swayed from the 49ers’ side again. Long Beach State snapped a 25-match win streak for Tulane in Fogelman Arena with the victory, keyed by big nights from Washington, Caitlin Ledoux, and Jocelyn Neely. Ledoux finished with her second double-double of the tournament, putting away 15 kills along with 12 digs, while Jocelyn Neely finished with the first double-double of her career, adding 18 digs to go with 10 kills. Setter Ashley Lee added a career high 58 assists in the effort along with 19 digs, a third double-double for the team, while libero Lauren Minkel led the team with 22 digs and Libby Fontanilla has 12 digs, as five 49er players finished with double-digit digs. Set one was close from the start, but a kill from Maria Milsavljevic and a Tulane block put the Green Wave in front 9-7. From that point, the Green Wave continued to set Visnja Djurdjevic, who had seven kills in the set on the way to a 25-17 win. Tulane took an early lead in set two, moving in front 6-3 and holding that cushion throughout most of the set. The 49ers battled back for a trio of ties, and finally took the lead for the first time since the early points at 16-15 with a Washington kill and a Tulane error. Four straight Green Wave points out of a timeout killed the rally, however, and Tulane took set two 25-21 without another serious threat. Having rallied to get to 6-3, Long Beach State again extended their lead with a push, hitting Neely and Ledoux to move ahead 11-6. That cushion would last the 49ers the rest of the set, as the 49ers recovered for a 25-21 lead. Forcing the match to set five, Long Beach State again rallied from an early deficit to take an 8-5 lead after a kill and a block by Michelle Osunbor. With that lead, the 49ers were never again seriously threatened and finished off the comeback with a 15-11 set five victory. With the recovery in set three after a grim first two sets, Long Beach State held tough in set four as the teams traded leads three times, until two aces from Lee sparked a late rally to give the 49ers a 22-15 lead on the way to a 25-19 win. Long Beach State returns to California next week for its next action, participating in a tournament hosted by Cal State Fullerton. The 49ers will start the tournament by playing Fordham on Friday, September 18 at 4 p.m., before taking on No. 8 UCLA on Saturday, September 19 at 5 p.m. Both matches will be held in Titan Gym.<\/p>\n From LBSU reports <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Down two sets to none, the ‘Niners rallied on the shoulders of New Orleans native Naomi Washington, winning the next three to defeat Tulane in five.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-3304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3304\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3304"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=3304"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}