<\/div>\n From Reports By Long Beach State Sports Information Department<\/span><\/p>\n No. 7 Long Beach State started slow and couldn’t rally as The Beach dropped a 30-24, 32-30, 33-31 MPSF decision at No. 4 Cal State Northridge Friday night.<\/p>\n LBSU (4-5, 3-3) hit just .200 for the match. The 49ers were led by Dean Bitter with 14 kills and a .286 hitting percentage and Josh Riley with 11 kills. Mike Klipsch finished with 24 assists and Dustin Watten had 11 digs.<\/p>\n The Beach got out on the wrong foot losing set one after hitting just .032. Bittner led the 49ers with four of the team’s nine kills and a .250 hitting percentage. The Matadors won despite hitting just .194.<\/p>\n Cal State Northridge jumped out to an early 4-0 lead in game two thanks to back-to-back aces by Mike Gaudino and built it to 9-3 on an ace by Eric Vance.<\/p>\n The Matadors built the lead to seven, 13-6, before the 49ers rallied. LBSU cut the lead to one, 23-22, but Cal State Northridge (7-2, 4-2) answered with a side out and an ace by Tanner Nua to push the lead back to three, 25-22.<\/p>\n Bittner answered with a kill to cut the lead to two and then Mike Klipsch added a kill to get the lead back to one, 25-24. After a long rally with a number of big plays, Northridge pushed the lead back to two, 26-24, on a Bittner hitting error.<\/p>\n LBSU got back within one on a kill by freshman Jim Baughman, but the Matadors answered with a kill of their own to push the lead back to 27-25.<\/p>\n The Beach got back within one on a service error by Northridge and then finally tied it on a kill by Bittner.<\/p>\n A service error gave the Matadors the lead, but Josh Riley tied it again at 28 with a kill. Cal State Northridge answered with a kill of its own, but Riley tied it again on a kill that saw the return hit a light and land on Northridge’s side of the net.<\/p>\n Northridge got its second set point on a kill, but Tommy Pestolesi answered with a kill to tie it at 30. Cal State Northridge took the lead on a controversial call which LBSU protested and was issued a yellow card which resulted in a point for the Matadors and a 32-30 win in set two.<\/p>\n LBSU hit .250 in the game compared to the Matadors’ .244. Cal State Northridge won the set thanks in part to its four aces.<\/p>\n In set three, LBSU took its first lead of the night on a service error by Northridge to start the set. The set went back and forth with neither team leading by more than a point until the 49ers took a 24-22 lead on a block.<\/p>\n Cal State Northridge scored the next three points, the third on a triple block of Bittner, to regain the lead 25-24. The Beach tied it at 25 on a service error by the Matadors, but Northridge regained the lead on a kill before Dan Alexander tied it at 26 on a kill.<\/p>\n A block by Luke Shea and Bittner gave LBSU the 27-26 lead before CSN answered to tie it at 27. Tommy Pestolesi gave the 49ers another lead with a kill off the Northridge block but Northridge answered again to tie the set at 28.<\/p>\n An ace off the net by Nua set up match point for the Matadors. Pestolesi answered with a kill to tie the score at 29.<\/p>\n Cal State Northridge got another match point after another kill, but Riley tied it with another Beach kill off a block.<\/p>\n Northridge set up a third match point with a kill but allowed The Beach to tie it at 31 with a service error. The Matadors got a fourth match point on another kill and then won it 3-0 on a hitting error by Dan Alexander.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" No. 7 Long Beach State started slow and couldn’t rally as The Beach dropped a 30-24, 32-30, 33-31 MPSF decision at No. 4 Cal State Northridge Friday night.<\/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-4776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4776","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=4776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4776\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4776"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=4776"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=4776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}