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The mark of a good team, in any sport, is consistency. <\/span>Long Beach State’s women’s volleyball team, while incredibly talented and at times appearing unstoppable, has been anything but for most of the season. <\/span>They’d win a tough match, playing to their potential, and then drop a stinker against an easy opponent, like when they beat nationally ranked Cal Poly SLO, only to lose to UCI six days later. <\/span>But, since that UCI match, the team appears to have found their rhythm, and exorcised some of their demons against Pacific Saturday night in a three set victory, 25-22, 25-19, 25-22. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Pacific had won the teams’ first meeting, one of those inconsistent evenings that the 49ers are hoping they’ve put behind them. <\/span>They may have good reason to think that they have, since they’ve only given up one set in their last four matches, and have looked dominant throughout. <\/span>A big part of their success is the long-awaited emergence of Quincy Verdin, the talented senior who has been hot and cold this season. <\/span>As she has gone, so have gone the 49ers—it’s no surprise that the last four matches have been her best stretch of the season. <\/span>“Quincy is starting to be Quincy<\/i><\/span>,” Long Beach State coach Brian Gimmillaro says. <\/span>“She’s so capable and so skilled, and she’s playing up to that potential.” <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Indeed, she is capable, capable of taking a match over when she’s playing at her best. <\/span>The first set of tonight’s match against Pacific was by far the most competitive, with 10 ties and five lead changes—it was not too hard to imagine how Long Beach had coughed up a loss the first time they played the Tigers. <\/span>Knowing how important his team’s state of mind is, Gimmillaro shouted “Stay calm!” to them a few times (especially after the Tigers notched two consecutive aces). <\/span>Then, down 22-21, coach Gimmillaro called a timeout to settle them down. <\/span>When they came back out, they scored four consecutive points—two of them off of Verdin kills, including the emphatic finisher.<\/span><\/p>\n The second set was less intense, with Long Beach jumping out to a 9-1 lead. <\/span>Pacific pulled within four a few times, but the 49ers had the set in hand, winning by six. <\/span>The Tigers looked better in set three, taking a 17-14 lead before Verdin took the game back, scoring two of the 49ers’ four consecutive points to give them a lead they hung onto till the end of the match-deciding set. <\/span>She finished with 12 kills and two blocks on the night, hitting .348.<\/span><\/p>\n After the game, Verdin said she didn’t think she’d done anything differently over the last few weeks. <\/span>“I think it’s just late in the season,” she said. <\/span>“We’ve been practicing really hard, and I think that we’re all picking up. <\/span>I think we’ve all been more consistent.” <\/span>Caitlin Ledoux certainly has been, and the freshman finished with 7 kills and 3 blocks on the night; Nicole Vargas had 33 assists; and Iris Murray led the team in digs with 11. <\/span>But those aren’t astounding numbers—the whole team may be playing better, but the big change has been Verdin. <\/span><\/p>\n The 49ers get a much-needed week off before resuming action at home on November 4<\/span>th<\/span><\/sup>, against Cal State Fullerton.<\/span> <\/span><\/span>For the first time this season, I think it’s safe to say that 49er volleyball won’t be the most important thing going on while they’re playing…<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Continuing their excellent October streak, the 49ers handled the Pacific Tigers at home on Saturday.<\/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-5424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5424","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=5424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5424\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5424"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=5424"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"http:\/\/i304.photobucket.com\/albums\/nn191\/LBPOSTphotos\/Sports\/IMG_1774.jpg\")
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