Riverside—Just three days removed from being swept 3-0 on the island against Big West undefeated Hawai'i, the UC Riverside Volleyball Team responded by taking the first set against the conference's other unbeaten, Long Beach State, before ultimately falling in four sets, 3-1 in the home opener.
In the opening set on the new SRC Arena floor, the teams traded points on their way to a tie at 20. The Highlanders then forced an attack error and got a kill from Meg Graham to go up two, 22-20 forcing a 49ers timeout.
Brooke Callahan then had a kill on assist from Chelsea Doyle to force the visitors to stop play for a second time—their final timeout of the set. Coming out of the timeout, Doyle found Callahan once again for her 12th assist and Callahan's eighth kill of the set, which gave UCR set point at 24-20. The Beach got a kill to a stave off game point number one, but Graham answered with the set clinching kill to give the Highlanders the opening frame, 25-21.
Callahan connected on eight of nine attempts for a scorching hot .889 attack percentage in the first set.
The second set saw the 49ers jump out to an 11-1 advantage en route to evening the match at a set a piece with a 25-11 second set victory.
Midway through the third frame, LBSU led 20-13. The seven point margin was the largest of the set, but the Highlanders would take five of the next seven points to trim it to four at 22-18. The teams alternated the next nine points as the 49ers would eventually claim the third set, 25-20.
Through 25 points in the fourth set, the Highlanders trailed 15-10 and would get no closer as Long Beach went on to claim a 25-16 fourth set win and a 3-1 match victory.
Callahan finished with 15 kills to lead UCR. Cristina Maietta had 16 digs to go with 10 kills, and Doyle tallied 43 assists, nine digs in the loss.
Maddie Hubbell and Frances Camandang had spectacular sprawling efforts all night long in amassing 17 and 14 digs respectively for the Highlanders.
Nele Barber paced the Beach with 15 kills to lead four 49ers with double-digit kills, and Missy Owens 50 logged asissts to go with 12 digs.
The Highlanders play game two of their four-game home stand Saturday night at 7 PM against UC Irvine.
