Track and Field: Big West Awards

Hot off the heels of LBSU Men's Track and Field program winning the Big West Championship, top honors have been awarded to the 49ers with Colin Dunbar taking home Field Athlete of the Year and head coach Andy Sythe taking home his third Big West Coach of the Year award.

Dunbar, a senior thrower, had an outstanding season, being named Big West Field Athlete of the Week on four separate occasions. Most recently, he won both the discus and hammer throw at the Big West Championships to propel Long Beach State to the conference title. He placed third in the shot put and seventh in the javelin, becoming only the second athlete in conference history to score in all four throwing events.

Throughout the season, Dunbar established lifetime bests of 223-06 in the hammer throw, 177-5 in the discuss, and 55-02.75 in the shot put.

After leading the men's track and field team to a Big West Championship Coach Sythe was awarded BW Coach of the Year for the third time, his first since 2008. LBSU claimed five individual titles at the league meet as well as the decathlon event, earning the most points by a club since the last time the 49ers won the BW title in 2008.

LBSU track and field now moves on to the NCAA West Preliminary rounds May 26-28 in Eugene, Ore.

Softball: award re-cap and NCAA tournament preview

After completing a stellar 2011 regular season, Long Beach State now has the hardware to back it up.

Big West Awards

The headliner for LBSU was Erin Jones-Wesley, who is only the second pitcher (teammate Brooke Turner was the first) ever to be named both Big West Pitcher of the Year and BW Freshman Pitcher of the Year. Jones-Wesley posted a stat line of 22 wins (led BW), 1.45 ERA (led BW) and 163 strikeouts in 183.2 innings pitched.

Jones-Wesley joins senior third baseman Liz Javier (.325 batting average, 2 HR, 25 RBI), and freshman outfielder Hannah De Gaetano (.328 batting average, 2 HR, 17 RBI) on the All Big West First team.

Long Beach State had three representatives on Second Team All Big West: senior first baseman Christina Schallig (.344 batting average in league games, 4 HR, 17 RBI), sophomore second baseman Nalani St. Germain (.320 batting average, 8 HR, 29 RBI), and freshman designated player Sarah Carrasco (.328 batting average, 2 HR, 20 RBI)

Pitchers Taylor Petty and Brooke Turner earned honorable mention all Big West accolades.

NCAA Tournament 

Post season play will kick off for LBSU softball on Friday at 2:30 p.m. in a rematch with San Diego State. Long Beach will play in the Tempe, Ariz. regional with host team and No. 1 overall seed Arizona State. North Dakota State is the other team in the regional.

All games in the Tempe regional will be broadcast on ESPNU.

For NCAA Tourney softball updates, be sure to stay tuned to LongBeachState.com as well as LBSU's social media outlets:


facebook.com/LBSUathletics
twitter.com/LBSUathletics

NCAA Softball has their own social media outlets that will also be updating constantly about the tournament:

facebook.com/ncaawcws

twitter.com/ncaasoftball
hashtag: #wcws

AVCA National Player of the Week: Josh Riley

Leading up to the MPSF tournament, senior outside hitter Josh Riley was named Sports Imports/ AVCA National Player of the Week. We recently caught up with Josh and asked about the award and his time at Long Beach State.

Black and Gold Insider: How did it feel to be named national player of the week?

Josh Riley: It was an honor to be named player of the week, but it was better to get the win up at Stanford. I would not have gotten the award if it was for not the team winning.

Can you give a bit of a recap of the season?

Josh Riley: The season was a great turn around from the 2010 season and we were very close as a team. We had some emotional wins and some emotional losses but over all the season was great.

What was your favorite part about playing volleyball at Long Beach State?

Josh Riley: My favorite part about playing volleyball at LBSU was hands down playing in the Pyramid and the guys on the team.

Does one memory in particular stand out over your career here?

Josh Riley: Going to the final four, or winning that first playoff game against Stanford.

What does it mean to bleed Black and Gold?

Josh Riley: It means the world to me because no one works harder than we do.

Track and Field: Big West Championship Preview

 The Black and Gold Insider caught up with T&F coach Andy Sythe as he prepares his team for the Big West Championships this weekend in Irvine.

2011 Softball Seniors

As Long Beach State softball readies for their final series of the year, we had a chat with the four seniors from the 2011 team.