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Long Beach City College Long Beach State

College Notebook: LBSU, LBCC Basketball Back In Action

Last week was a roller coaster for Long Beach State men’s basketball. The Beach (6-12, 1-1) was embarrassed in a loss at Cal State Northridge on Wednesday, but bounced back and beat UC Santa Barbara on Saturday.

LBSU had beaten CSUN in seven of their last 10 meetings coming into the Big West Conference opener last week, but the Beach had one of its worst defensive performances of the season in a 95-77 loss.

Three days later at UC Santa Barbara, LBSU delivered one of its best defensive performances of the season in a 55-52 upset victory. The Beach held the Gouaches to just 32 percent shooting from the field. UCSB only had two field goals in the final 10 minutes, and didn’t score in the last 4:39 of the game.

Sophomore Chance Hunter scored a game-high 16 points for LBSU and hit a critical 3-pointer to give LBSU its first lead of the contest at 52-50 with five minutes remaining. He then had a block, breakaway steal and assist on the Michael Carter III dunk that put the Beach ahead for good.

Carter III scored 10 points and dished out six assists, while freshman Joshua Morgan scored 10 points and grabbed a team-high seven rebounds and two blocks.

UCSB (12-5, 1-1) was first in the conference coming into the week, and opened the game on an 11-4 run before taking a 33-25 lead into halftime.

LBSU Men’s Volleyball

The No. 4-ranked LBSU kicked off the 2020 season by winning all three of its games at the UCSB Asics Invitational in Santa Barbara last week.

The Beach were led by junior middle blocker Simon Andersen and his impressive .667 hitting percentage on the weekend. Andersen and freshman libero Mason Briggs were both named to the All-Tournament Team. Briggs finished the week with 30 digs.

LBSU Women’s Basketball

The Beach (6-9, 1-1) also split their first two Big West games last week with a 72-69 win over Cal Poly, and a 69-65 loss at Cal State Fullerton.

Junior guard Shanaijah Davison scored 19 points in both games to become the 26th player in LBSU women’s basketball history to record 1,000 career points.

Redshirt sophomore Ma’Qhi Berry scored a game-high 24 points in the win over Cal Poly at Walter Pyramid, and sophomore Justina King added 12 points and six assists.

LBCC Men’s Basketball

The Vikings (12-4) improved their winning streak to five games by beating L.A. Trade-Tech 105-79 last Friday. It’s the second time in the last three games that LBCC has scored 100 points or more.

Sophomore Jace Bass scored a team-high 41 points for LBCC, and sophomore Matt Schmidt recorded a double-double with 20 points and 12 rebounds. Schmidt is a Wilson High alum and is averaging 10.6 points and 6.6 rebounds per game in his second season at LBCC.

LBCC is ranked No. 26 in California.

LBCC Women’s Basketball

The Vikings (8-8) lost at Mt. San Antonio 68-64 last Friday. Freshman Donavion Huskey scored a game-high 28 points for LBCC.

LBCC Football

More postseason honors came in for the Vikings last week. Sophomore defensive end Shane Irwin and sophomore linebacker D’Anthony Jones were both named to the California Community College Football Coaches Association (CCCFCA) All-America first-team and the Region III All-California team. Freshman Dallas Branch and sophomore Zion Bowens were also named CCFCA Region III All-California.

JJ Fiddler
JJ Fiddler is an award-winning sportswriter and videographer who has been covering Southern California sports for multiple newspapers and websites since 2004. After attending Long Beach State and creating the first full sports page at the Union Weekly Newspaper, he has been exclusively covering Long Beach prep sports since 2007.
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