COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Long Beach State men’s volleyball team is back atop the sport after capping a dominant season with one of its best performances.
Top-seeded LBSU defeated third-seeded UCLA, 25-17, 25-23, 25-21, on Monday night to win its fourth national championship and avenge a loss to the Bruins in the 2024 title match, which was played at Long Beach State.
Freshman setter Moni Nikolov, the national player of the year, had six kills, four aces, 27 assists and two digs to pace Long Beach (30-3), which hit .354 and held UCLA to .192. Alex Kandev had a team-high 13 kills while hitting .450, Nato Dickinson added seven kills on a .417 hitting percentage and Skyler Varga had five kills.
Cooper Robinson had 10 kills and hit .381 to lead the Bruins (22-7), while Zach Rama had eight kills.
Long Beach has won three of the past seven NCAA titles (there was no 2020 tournament because of the COVID pandemic) and has been the runner-up two other times over that stretch (2022 and 2024). Its other national championship came in 1991.
UCLA (22-7) was chasing its 22nd national championship and trying to become the first program to win three in a row since the Bruins won four in a row under longtime coach Al Scates from 1981-84.
LBSU, which had a 20-match winning streak earlier this season, spent the past 14 weeks ranked No. 1 behind a deep roster. Long Beach had dropped two matches to Big West Conference rival Hawaii last month, including the Big West Tournament final, but won nine of 10 sets in the NCAAs to leave little doubt as to who the best team in the country was.
Long Beach won all three of its matches against UCLA this season, beating the Bruins twice in February (a four-set victory at home, and a sweep at Pauley Pavilion) before Monday’s title match.
The 2025 NCAA Tournament will be played at UCLA.
More to come on this story.
