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“If Pepperdine loses this second game,” I told a friend during game two with the 49ers leading 31-30, “They’ve got no chance.” <\/p>\n
The Waves promptly served into the stands and #3 Long Beach State took a 2-0 lead on the fifth-ranked Pepperdine Waves. That lost point summed up the night for the Waves, who committed 37 errors and shot a measly -.065 for the match. This was no doubt due in part to Long Beach’s 17.5 blocks, thwarting Pepperdine’s attack again and again, but the Waves did themselves no favors.<\/p>\n
<\/object><\/p>\nIn front of a packed student section in the Pyramid on this first week of CSULB’s Spring Semester, the 49ers swept Pepperdine in three games, 30-21, 32-30, 30-21, to move to 7-0 on the season and 5-0 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation. Senior hitter Paul Lotman led the way with 16 kills, while Dan Alexander added 11 kills and 10 blocks.<\/p>\n
Lotman – named last week’s National Player of the Week – came up big when the 49ers needed their star most, launching himself forward for serves (he recorded a team-high four service aces) and upward for kills. His motion is the same for both acts – a powerful launch followed by full extension and cocking of the arm, floating… floating… floating… until the ball reaches the right point and Lotman explodes his arm forward to smash the ball towards its target (see video above at 0:47 for visual evidence). He rarely misses.<\/p>\n
Freshman setter Mike Klipsch remained perfectly on time with his sets throughout the match and emerged with 25 assists, putting together a surprisingly stellar season.<\/p>\n
No rest for the weary, though. After slaying #7 UC Irvine, #4 UCLA and #5 Pepperdine in successive matches, the 49ers get one day’s rest before welcoming #11 USC to the Pyramid this Friday at 7pm.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<\/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-5918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5918","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=5918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5918\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5918"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=5918"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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