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The offense for No. 1/1 Long Beach State remains unstoppable – even against a top-10 ranked team.
Freshman setter Moni Nikolov guided the offense to a .522 attack percentage as Long Beach swept No. 7/8 CSUN 25-22, 25-15, 25-20 on Wednesday in Northridge, California.
The Beach (15-0, 1-0 Big West) did not commit an attack error in the final two games and ended the match with a season-low three errors. In addition, four of Long Beach State’s starters finished with no attack errors in the Big West opener.
Long Beach State entered this match as the only undefeated team in the nation and had a nation-best .410 attack percentage. This sweep is the fourth match this season that the Beach has hit more than .500.
Opposite Daniil Hershtynovich led all players with 14 kills and zero errors on a season-best .737 attack percentage against CSUN (13-3, 0-1 Big West). Hershtynovich also opened the road match with a game-high seven kills in the first game.
Nikolov in the victory added six kills on a perfect 1.000 attack percentage.
Along with the offensive performance, Nikolov had a match-high four aces highlighted with back-to-back aces in the final game.
CSUN setter Donovan Constable in the loss had a team-high three aces and led the offense to a .288 attack percentage.
CSUN pin-hitters Jalen Phillips and Lorenzo Bertozzi in the loss each had a team-high 12 kills and hit more than .350. Phillips and Bertozzi, though, were two of three Matadors to finish with more than two kills against the Beach.