The Brown volleyball team (1-4, 0-0 Ivy) dropped both of its matches in Long Beach, California this past weekend, losing 1-3 to California State University, Long Beach (6-2, 0-0 Big West Conference) on Sept. 11 and 0-3 to Loyola Marymount University (7-2, 0-0 West Coast Conference) the next day.
Brown has now lost three consecutive matches and has fallen to the last-place No. 8 spot in the Ivy League.
Though the Bears captured the weekend’s first set against Long Beach State, their early promise quickly gave way to a disappointing streak of six consecutive set losses over the two matches to send Bruno home without a victory.
Friday night’s match against Long Beach State featured an initial tight contest that slipped out of Brown’s grasp as Long Beach commanded a dominant advantage. Overall, Brown was statistically outmatched, holding a mere .141 hitting percentage compared to the Long Beach State’s superior .250 mark. The Bears also committed 25 errors — 6 more than the Beach did.
The first set was a back-and-forth battle between the two sides. They remained neck-and-neck until a sequence of Long Beach kills earned the Beach a 10-7 advantage over the Bears. From there, a kill by setter Julia Kakkis ’28 helped Brown claw back into the game, and the teams traded points as the Bears fought their way within one point of Long Beach, leaving the tally at 11-12.
But Long Beach State rattled off two consecutive kills and pulled to a 14-11 lead. Again, the Bears demonstrated their resiliency. Bruno capitalized on errors by Long Beach and made luck of their own through an ace by libero Eve McLaury ’28 and a well-placed kill by middle blocker Sophia Wolfson ’28, who was selected for 2025 First Team All-Ivy. After the sequence was over, Brown had collected 4 unanswered points and claimed a 16-14 lead.
From there, Long Beach and Brown both fought to approach the 25-point mark, and neither side again claimed a lead of more than 1 point until the set’s final point.
From a 24-24 tie, a long rally followed, as both teams demonstrated their drive to win. Eventually, outside hitter Elle Holley ’30 put her stamp on the set, releasing a spike that rocketed past the Long Beach players until it found its target — the back-left corner of the court.
With the chance to secure a 2-point lead and author a conclusion to the weekend’s opening set, Brown didn’t blink on set point. The Bears’ blockers restricted Long Beach’s field of vision on their attempt to return the serve of libero Sophie Haskell ’30, and the Beach’s spike soared waywardly right to win the set for Brown 26-24.
The second set saw Long Beach jump out to an early 3-point lead and protect it all the way until they put it away 25-23.
The pivotal moment came when Brown drew an out-of-bounds return on the previous point to get to a 21-20 tally. But they would not be so fortunate on the next point, as an attempted block by middle blocker Fisayo Afonja ’28 did not carry enough force to keep the ball on the Beach’s side of the net, and Long Beach State reclaimed their 2-point lead.
Now brimming with confidence, Long Beach carried their momentum into the third set, where a late-set push took the Beach to a 25-17 win. The fourth set came unwound for the Bears even earlier, and the Beach cruised to a 25-12 victory and 3-1 win in the match.
The next day, Brown took on LMU with hopes of redeeming their loss to Long Beach. Instead, the Lions slashed right through the defenseless Bears, sweeping Bruno. The Bears lost each set by at least 5 points.
Yet again, Brown was clearly outmatched before the match even began. Bruno’s .171 hitting percentage fell far short of LMU’s .313 percentage, and the Lions tallied nearly double the amount of kills as the Bears: 50 compared to Brown’s 29. The only statistical category in which Brown led was errors, committing 11, three fewer than LMU’s 14.
The lowest moment of the match came in the second set, when LMU went on a 10-1 run to put the set — which they won 25-13 — out of reach. The third set was filled with more dominance by the Lions, beating Brown out 25-18.
The Bears will look to break their losing streak this coming weekend at the Fairfield Invitational in Fairfield, Conn., where they will compete against Fairfield University (5-4, 0-0 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference) on Friday and Middle Tennessee University (6-3, 0-0 Conference USA) and Central Connecticut State University (2-8, 0-0 Northeast Conference) on Saturday.
Sajiv Mehta is a sports editor. He is from Scarsdale, New York and plans on concentrating in English and American Studies. In his free time, he can be found reading an encyclopedic novel or watching the Yankees.
