{"id":840,"date":"2011-02-28T17:32:00","date_gmt":"2011-02-28T17:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/articles\/sports\/big-weekend-for-long-beach-state-basketball-volleyball-plus-much-more\/"},"modified":"2011-02-28T17:32:00","modified_gmt":"2011-02-28T17:32:00","slug":"big-weekend-for-long-beach-state-basketball-volleyball-plus-much-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/big-weekend-for-long-beach-state-basketball-volleyball-plus-much-more","title":{"rendered":"Big Weekend For Long Beach State Basketball & Volleyball, Plus Much More"},"content":{"rendered":"

TEMPERATURE IS FALLING AS THE 49ERS CLINCH AND TUNE UP THEIR HONDA FOR A TITLE RUN
<\/strong>
A week like this one – after the last one – is analogous to moving from a nuclear reactor to a toaster oven. Men\u2019s basketball nearly filled all the nooks and crannies of the building that may officially have just 4,200 seats but, the best standing-room-only views in the land. Officially opened on November 30, 1994 (a 71-64 win over the University of Detroit before a crowd of 5,021 and an ESPN television audience), the ‘Myd never looked better. Saturday we had another of those ESPN national TV shows and more student \u201cincentives\u201d than you could shake your foam finger at (pizza, drinks, Marines with tee shirts, tattoos, and a chance to win a car).<\/p>\n

This week, however, the hoop-a-holics just have to figure out how to make the crowded drive to Riverside. The men\u2019s team is now just one win short of that sought-after standard of twenty (19-10, 13-2 BWC) after efficient eliminations of Cal Poly, 61-55<\/a>, and UC Santa Barbara, 71-53<\/a>. The odds-on BWC Player of the Year favorite Casper Ware averaged 25.5 points per game.
 
Women’s basketball (8-21, 6-9 BWC) dropped two games at UC Santa Barbara, 74-70 and at Cal Poly, 61-48. The ‘Myd atmosphere was also charged for men’s volleyball (8-6, 7-4 MPSF), who swept perennial power No. 9 Pepperdine, 3-0, but went five before falling to No. 1 USC, 3-2. The Beach is still in contention for not only a MPSF berth but the title as well, but they need to win two on the road at UC Santa Barbara Wednesday and at UCLA Friday night.
 
Baseball (2-5) and softball (9-5) continued their Top 25 tour and still get a win or two along the way. The Dirtbags lost to No. 7 CS Fullerton 4-3, and then beat No. 16 Arizona 2-1. Softball whipped Utah, 5-1 and No. 6 Oklahoma, 2-1 but like the lads the games in between weren\u2019t too good for the ladies. Also outside, No. 54 women’s tennis moved their mark to a glitzy 7-1 defeating UC Riverside 5-0, and a more squeaky 4-3 verdict over their arch-arch, UC Irvine 4-3. Tennis plays at No. 62 San Diego State and hosts No. 57 UC Santa Barbara Saturday at noon in the posh Rhodes Tennis Center. The tennis scores at UCI could have been 5-2 or 6-1 but\u2026 then March 12 is just around the corner and Klaudia Malenovska would then be, finally, out of the NCAA jail house.   
   

The baseball weekend doesn\u2019t get any easier as No. 15 Oregon comes in for three, Friday at 6:30pm, Saturday at 5:30pm and Sunday at 1pm while you can mobile chase softball results from the Campbell\/Cartier Tournament in San Diego. Last of the calendar notes: Women’s water polo hosts No. 1 Stanford this Sunday at noon, then enjoys more friendly swim vs. their alumni at 2:00pm.<\/p>\n

Stolen Scouting Reports<\/strong>\u2014All of the Big West bullies have one name in their paperwork on how to beat the Beach in basketball. \u201cDon\u2019t let Sean Starkey in the game!\u201d The twist of course is that Sean, son of the legendary Sabrina Scuderio Starkey, never appears until the game is really, really wrapped up. Another basketball note of note, the 49er fans may seem a bit jaded with their recent Big West regular season title but not the head maniac Dan Monson. \u201cIt has been 12 years since I have had a team win their conference championship, so it is a big deal. We have work to do, but this is a big deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

In their opening series against North Dakota State, Arizona starters went 20.2 innings, allowing only two runs and striking out 27 batters. The Wildcats swept the Bison 3-0. In their weekend series against Long Beach State, Arizona starters went 22 innings, allowing 3 runs and striking out 16 batters. And this note and quote from Troy Buckley, \u201cWe have got to be able to hit the fastball and right now we aren\u2019t doing it. Our pitchers don\u2019t have a lot of velocity right now so our hitters don\u2019t see it much in practice.\u201d And what about these \u201cmeaningless\u201d mid-week games? \u201cWe are going to do everything we can to win a game anytime. I won\u2019t ruin my weekend rotation but Tuesdays are big for us this season.\u201d Last add, can we blame it on the new bats? \u201cThe bats,\u201d Buck growled, \u201care the bats.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was another impressive weekend for Long Beach State sports as some teams are looking up while others have work to do. The Dirtbags prepare for No. 15 Oregon this weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"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-840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840","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\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=840"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=840"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}