LONG BEACH, Calif. – Despite coming out strong to win the opening set on Friday night, the No. 6 UC Santa Barbara men's volleyball team had its nine-match win streak snapped by No. 3 Long Beach State, 22-25, 25-19, 25-16, 25-19.

ON THE STAT SHEET

• It wasn't the Gauchos' (14-5, 3-1) worst hitting night, as they posted a .243 clip as a team. However, they weren't able to stop the extremely talented LBSU offense. The Beach (13-3, 2-1) finished with a .461 hitting percentage, easily the highest of any of UCSB's opponents this season.
• Santa Barbara's biggest bright spot was opposite Geste Bianchi, who more than doubled his previous career-best of seven kills with a team-high 15 on an extremely efficient .480 hitting night. The freshman also led the team with eight digs and two blocks.
• Ryan Wilcox was held under 10 kills for the first time in 10 outings, ending with nine. Brandon Hicks had eight kills while Donovan Todorov and Dayne Chalmers went for six apiece.

HOW IT HAPPENED

1st Set (25-22 UCSB)

• The Beach went on an early 4-0 run and led for much of the set. However, the Gauchos refused to let the lead grow higher than three points, finally getting a slight 19-18 edge on an LBSU attacking error.
• Long Beach tied it four straight times as the two sides traded blows. There were 18 ties and six lead changes in the first set alone.
• A Wilcox kill broke the back-and-forth trend and made it 24-22 before setter Patrick Paragas ended things with his only kill of the night.
• The Gauchos ended game one with a .500-to-.481 hitting advantage.

2nd Set (25-19 LBSU)

• Long Beach cleaned things up early in set two, going on another 4-0 spurt to take a commanding 13-6 advantage.
• Three different LBSU players tallied four kills as the home side hit at a .500 clip compared to UCSB's .306.
• Bianchi got hot with six kills on 10 swings, but the Gaucho defense was held to a single block.

3rd Set (25-16 LBSU)

• The Beach carried its momentum into set three, opening with leads of 4-1 and 15-7 and never trailing.
• LBSU took its largest lead of the night of nine points on several occasions, including on the set-sealing kill from Alex Nikolov.

4th Set (25-19 LBSU)

• The Gauchos hung in to try and extend the match to a fifth set, leading 10-9 midway through.
• However, the Beach would break away with a crucial 5-1 run, leading by as many as seven points as UCSB was unable to close the gap.

NEXT UP
Tomorrow night, the two teams will face off once again, this time in UCSB's Rob Gym at 7:00 p.m. on ESPN+.