LONG BEACH, Calif. – A late rally from No. 2 seed Long Beach State wasn’t enough to overcome the early deficit to top-seeded defending champion UCLA in a 3-1 final at the 2024 National Collegiate Men’s Volleyball Championship from Walter Pyramid.
The regular- and postseason Big West champions close their remarkable season with a 27-3 overall record, with two of the three losses coming at the hands of the Bruins, both 3-1 decisions.
In front of a crowd of 3,804 fans, Long Beach State was paced by a 12-kill effort from junior Sotiris Siapanis with sophomore Skyler Varga adding 11 kills on offense. Redshirt senior Aidan Knipe assisted on 38 scoring plays in a final collegiate match with senior Mason Briggs adding seven digs in the college finale.
The first set was tight throughout the early-goings, with DiAeris McRaven knotting the frame a 18-18 after a tip over the net. However, the Bruins were able to put down the next three points to get the lead and the momentum and closed the frame at 25-21 on a strike from Merrick McHenry.
The second set was all UCLA from the outset, as the No. 1 seed hit .381 in the set (10-2-21) with three aces in their first seven points in the set. The Bruins took the 2-0 lead after Cooper Robinson’s final point in the 25-20 frame.
Long Beach State flipped a switch in the marathon third set to stay alive in the match, hitting at a .367 clip in the 29-27 set. The frame saw 18 tie scores and seven lead changes as LBSU played off the energy in the building to will themselves to the set victory despite needing five set points to get the job done. McRaven’s swing sealed the deal to force the fourth.
The battle continued in the fourth. LBSU held the 13-11 advantage at the midpoint after scoring back-to-back points on UCLA errors. The Bruins were able to knot the game at 14 apiece off a strike from Championship Most Outstanding Player Ethan Champlin. UCLA strung together tree points to take a 18-15 lead capped by another stroke from Champlin to force a Long Beach State timeout, but the beach went on a run of their own to knot the frame at 19 and then against at 20 after Simon Torwie’s attack was true. UCLA closed out the game on a 5-1 run with McHenry and David Ido at the service line to send the UCLA contingent home with the victory.
Long Beach State duo Skyler Varga and Simon Torwie were named to the All-Tournament Team, along with AVCA National Player of the Year Hilir Henno of UC Irvine after the Anteaters made the semifinal round, falling to UCLA in five on Thursday.
The appearance in the Championship final was Long Beach State’s 10th in program history and the fourth since men’s volleyball became a conference-sponsored sport in 2019. The Big West has now had at least one team in the last game of the year in six-straight seasons, with championship runs in 2018 and ’19 by the Beach and 2021 and ’22 for Hawai’i. In that span, LBSU has been national runner-up in 2022 and ’24 with UH playing UCLA in the final in 2023.