Long Beach Going for Quick Hit : Volleyball: The 49er offense, set up by Hernandez, takes on UCLA in NCAA final.

Sabrina Hernandez has no trouble recalling the time Cal State Long Beach won the NCAA women’s volleyball championship in 1989. She watched the entire match.

But times have changed since Sheri Sanders led the 49ers on their title run two years ago, while Hernandez sat on the bench. The 5-foot-2 Sanders and most of her hitters and blockers have moved on.

Hernandez, a junior, is now in charge of the sophisticated 49er offense, currently the best in the country.

“In ’89 I got to watch,” she said. “Now it’s my turn.”

Hernandez and the rest of the 49ers (36-1) are only one victory away from another national championship. But first they will have to get past defending champion UCLA (30-5) tonight at 7:30 at Pauley Pavilion.

Still, Hernandez, a former Cerritos Gahr High standout who was not recruited by any of the major volleyball programs, has developed beyond anyone but Coach Brian Gimmillaro’s expectations.

“We saw some abilities in her,” Gimmillaro said. “What we want are people who are willing to do whatever it takes to be really good, and she has become that. And now she’s much better than people thought she would be.”

Who would have thought two years ago that Hernandez, who played in only nine games during the 49ers’ title run, would be leading the team into an NCAA championship match?

“She’s been doing an excellent job,” said Antoinnette White, a Long Beach hitter who was part of the team that won in ’89 and who last Wednesday was named player of the year.

White had a career-high 33 kills in the 49ers’ Northwest Regional final, which went five games. But it was Hernandez who set up White and the rest of the Long Beach hitters. She finished with a career-high 87 assists. She followed that with 72 assists in the 49ers’ NCAA semifinal victory over fifth-ranked Louisiana State.

This after guiding the 49ers through what has been rated by coaches as the toughest schedule, and what was unquestionably the toughest regional. The Northwest Regional featured three of the top five teams in the country.

“She’s been doing a great job down there,” UCLA Coach Andy Banachowski said. “The quickness of their offense and style of play, of moving their hitters so well, is what gives everybody fits. They run the quickest attack in the country.”

It was with this offense that the 49ers prevailed over the Bruins earlier this season, after a five-game match White called “one of the hardest I’ve ever played in.”

Banachowski said his team will have to do something to counter the quick-attack run by Hernandez.

“Hopefully we’ll be able to serve tough and take them out of their offense a little bit,” he said. “But if they pass well . . . “

If they do, then the title might well shift back to where it was before Sheri Sanders moved on.