Long Beach State
Mustangs to Face Long Beach State in Big West Volleyball Championship Semifinals
11/27/2024 10:20:00 PM | Women's Volleyball
IRVINE, Calif. — Cal Poly’s work is not done even after capturing the Big West regular season title last weekend. The Mustangs are in southern California ready to take on Long Beach State at UC Irvine’s Bren Events Center on Friday afternoon.
The Beach, the no. 4 seed, advanced through the first round of The Hawaiian Islands presents the 2024 Outrigger Big West Women’s Volleyball Championship, fighting past no. 5 seed UC San Diego in a tightly contested 3-1 result on Wednesday. The evening matchup yielded a no. 3 UC Davis 3-1 win over hosts no. 6 UC Irvine to set up the other semifinal clash between UC Davis and no. 2 Hawai’i.
Get pumped for our Big West Championship Semifinal matchup this week against either #4 Long Beach State or #5 UC San Diego!
— Cal Poly Volleyball (@CalPolyVolley) November 25, 2024
Support your Stangs at the Bren Events Center or watch on ESPN+ as we look to punch our ticket to the finals ????#RideHigh pic.twitter.com/ATFkFkOWZg
How We Got Here
Caroline Walters and the Mustangs scheduled the beginning of the season with tough competition in anticipation of their pursuit of a Big West Championship. Two of their first five opponents to start the season were ranked in the AVCA top-25 with another one of those five receiving votes. Despite falling in all three, Cal Poly proved its mettle and showed plenty of fight to set a tone for the 2024 season.
Despite those three losses, Cal Poly never strung together consecutive defeats again throughout the regular season. The Mustangs swept eight of their next 15 foes, which included six sweeps in their first seven matches of the conference slate.
During that stretch, Cal Poly provided multiple players in the Big West’s top statistical leaders lists and Emme Bullis earned two conference Setter of the Week awards. Cal Poly followed up that stretch with a series sweep in the Blue-Green rivalry for the first time since 2018. In the second of those two sweeps, Tommi Stockham broke into the top three for Cal Poly’s all-time career kills list.
Cal Poly ended the regular season as the only Big West team with 20+ overall wins in 2024, and this also marks the third straight campaign in which the Mustangs have earned 14 conference wins. The Mustangs also became just one of a handful of schools in the NCAA Division I this season to stack up double-digit wins on the road.
Four Mustangs combined for seven weekly conference honors through the season: Emme Bullis with three total Setter of the Week awards, Tommi Stockham with one Offensive Player of the Week, Chloe Leluge with one Freshman of the Week, and Elif Hurriyet with both one Defensive Player of the Week and one Freshman of the Week.
We've still got business to take care of at the Big West Championship ??
— Cal Poly Volleyball (@CalPolyVolley) November 27, 2024
But let's take a look back at our all-conference honors from yesterday! ??#RideHighhttps://t.co/yMZYGc9j4v
The Best of the Best
The Mustangs not only clinched the top seed for the Big West Championships but also its first conference regular season title since 2018. Walters' first title since taking over full-time in 2019 came in the same season the revered head coach reached the coveted 100 career wins milestone.
Under Walters, Cal Poly paced the conference with a .252 team hitting percentage, which was subsequently 45th in the NCAA while playing fantastic defense with opponents hitting a paltry .195 against the Mustangs. Cal Poly was also second in the conference for kills per set (12.96), first for allowing just 1.79 blocks per set to opponents, fourth for team blocks (2.23 per set), and fourth for aces (1.55 per set).
Announced on Tuesday afternoon, Cal Poly raked in nine total All-Big West honors, which included two first-team nods and one major award. Coach Walters earned Big West Coach of the Year, Breklyn Pulling picked up an All-Big West First Team nod, and most special of all Tommi Stockham garnered her fourth career All-Big West First Team honor, becoming the 14th player in Big West history and only the second Mustang to accomplish the feat.
Emme Bullis secured an All-Big West Second Team spot for her second-best assists per set total in the conference (10.27). Amy Hiatt, Chloe Leluge, and Elif Hurriyet all earned All-Big West Honorable Mentions while Leluge and Hurriyet were also named to the Big West All-Freshman Team. Leluge’s incredible freshman regular season may have been capped off with a pair of awards, but even more impressive was her conference-leading .372 hitting percentage as a middle blocker.
vs… Long Beach State
One of just three current Big West members with an all-time winning record over the Mustangs, Long Beach State has a long and storied past with Cal Poly (29-48 v. LBSU). However, the Mustangs have enjoyed more recent success with a 10-3 record over the Beach since 2017.
Due to the addition of a conference tournament that started last season, Big West opponents play all teams twice except two opponents per season who are played only once. This year, one of those opponents was Long Beach State - one of Cal Poly’s most tightly fought matches of the entire season that ended with a 3-2 Mustangs win in a tiebreaker fifth set (25-18, 20-25, 23-25, 25-23, 15-7).
The Mustangs tied what was, at the time, their highest single-game total blocks mark of the season while overcoming a 2-1 Long Beach State set lead. Long Beach State played true to its defensive style and held Cal Poly to a .200 team hitting percentage but the Mustangs played an even better shutdown game as the Beach hit just .151 while Cal Poly recorded 11 total blocks on the evening.
Led by Breklyn Pulling with 14 kills and 4 block assists, four Mustangs totaled kills in the double-digits, which included Tommi Stockham's double-double of 13 kills and 11 digs. In helping Pulling, Stockham, Kendall Beshear (12 kills), and Amy Hiatt (11 kills and 4 block assists), Emme Bullis supplied at least 50 assists for the fourth time this season. Elif Hurriyet set a new career-high of 28 digs, tied for the sixth-most in a single Big West match of 2024.
????WVB CHAMPS | No. 4 seed @LBSUWVB Advances to Semifinal Round of Big West Women's Volleyball Championship #?????????????????????? x #NCAAWVB
— The Big West (@BigWestSports) November 28, 2024
Read more ?? https://t.co/Kencuh9p7S
Potentially Up Next
A win over Long Beach State would earn Cal Poly its first Big West Championship Final in the two-year history of the conference postseason after losing to Hawai’i in last year’s Semifinals. If they advance, the Mustangs will play the winner of tomorrow evening’s match between no. 2 Hawai’i and no. 3 UC Davis and the Final takes place at 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 30 before the NCAA Selection Show the next day.
