DAVIS, Calif. -- Freshman Olivia Utterback finished with a team-high 12 kills and added nine digs on the day, while classmate Amara Aimufua joined her in double figures with 11 more, but UC Davis could not hold back visiting Long Beach State on Wednesday, as The Beach rallied from down a set to post a 3-1 (23-25, 25-20, 25-15, 25-21) victory over the Aggies at the University Credit Union Center.

UC Davis fell to 11-19 overall and 7-12 in Big West Conference play heading into its regular season finale on Saturday (Nov. 27) at Noon against Cal State Fullerton. Long Beach State evened its record at 15-15 overall and moved to 9-10 in league matches.

Aimufua hit .258 on the afternoon to lead the freshman duo, collecting her 19th double-digit kill performance of the year in the process, while Utterback hit .242, adding four blocks to her stat line and finishing with a tema-high 16 points. Junior Josephine Ough hit a team-high .462, finishing with eight kills on 13 swings to go with a pair of blocks.

Sophomore Shira Lahav also scooped up a match-high 15 digs to lead the defense.

A back-and-forth first set saw the two teams tied 15 times, trading the lead on six ocassions -- the last coming on an ace by Utterback for a 23-22 lead. Ough then sandwiched a pair of kills around a kill by Long Beach State's Erykah Lovett to end the set in favor of the Aggies, 25-23.

The Beach then led wire-to-wire in taking a two sets to one lead, winning the second, 25-20, and the third, 25-15, hitting .391 and .389 in those sets, respectively.

UC Davis then tried to rally in the fourth, nearly erasing an early four-point deficit to close to within a point at 12-11 on a kill by Ough. However, Long Beach State went on a bit of a run, scoring seven of the next nine points to go up by six and force an Aggie timeout. Utterback and Lana Radakovic answered the bell out of the break with back-to-back kills to stop the bleeding, and UC Davis battled back to within three points on a kill by Aimufua, but that would be as close as the Aggies would get as kills by Kashauna Williams and Kameron Bacon clinched the match.

Long Beach State hit .379 to UC Davis' .236 for the contest and had 52 digs to 41 for the Aggies.
 

---

ABOUT UC DAVIS
Centrally located between San Francisco and Lake Tahoe, over 700 student-athletes across 25 teams enjoy an unrivaled undergraduate experience at the fifth-ranked public school in the country. 

Ranked annually in the nation's top 10 in diversity and students' social mobility, UC Davis and its innovative Aggie EVO System helps student-athletes develop passions, connect with a comprehensive network of alums and industry leaders, gain real-world experience, and thrive as a young professional following a successful launch to full-time employment or graduate school.