Long Beach Watches It Slip Away : Volleyball: 49er assistant Green knows all about disappointment after losing in the 1984 Olympics.

After Cal State Long Beach was defeated by UCLA Saturday night at Pauley Pavilion in the final match of the NCAA women’s volleyball tournament, Long Beach Coach Brian Gimmillaro paced in front of the 49er bench, where his players sat rock still, blank looks on their faces.

The 49ers, seemingly in control of the match after winning the first two games, had lost the last three and the match.

Gimmillaro didn’t seem to know what to say to his players.

He said nothing.

In the middle of the bench, assistant coach Debbie Green draped her left arm around setter Sabrina Hernandez and whispered into her ear.

Green knows disappointment, having played for the U.S. team that lost to China in the gold-medal match at the 1984 Olympics.

“I told her that she has everything to be proud of,” Green said. “She played her guts out. And she’s a team player because, no matter what the score was, she was always talking to her teammates.

“That’s the most important thing. That’s all you can ask--that you never give up on your teammates--and she never gave up on her teammates.”

From behind the 49er bench, a disgruntled fan looked out onto the floor, where UCLA players and coaches were being called out to accept their awards after winning their second consecutive NCAA championship.

“How about the refs?” he screamed.

But it wasn’t the officials who beat Long Beach.

“UCLA played a good match,” Hernandez said, choking back tears after Long Beach, trying to win its second title in three years, lost for only the second time in 38 matches. “They had to play a good match to beat us. We’re a good team, but sometimes the best team doesn’t win.”

Green knows about that.

“I know what they feel like and no matter what anybody tells them, it’s going to be hard to get over this,” she said.

Still, she tried her best to console Hernandez.

“She was just telling me to keep my head high,” Hernandez said. “She knows what it feels like to come in second.”

Hernandez said it would be difficult to forget the loss. The 49ers seemed to have everything going their way, only to have it slip away.

“Volleyball’s a weird game,” she said. “You can be two games up and still lose. It’s a game of momentum, where one good dig, one roof, one pound can change the whole outcome of the game.”

But Hernandez never felt the match slipping away.

“This team has a lot of heart, a lot of fight, and we wanted it back,” she said. “I knew we’d hang in there, but things happen.”

Not all of them good.

“We were an eyelash from being out of here in three (games),” Gimmillaro said. “There was a touch against us that (had it not been detected) would have put us up 13-11 (in the third game).

“It was 12-11 and they hit a ball out of bounds. They put the number on the scoreboard--13-11--but the umpire said he saw a touch.

“And when they took that point back--and I’m not saying it was a bad call--the air went out of our balloon. UCLA was down when we went back to serve, but when they got the ball back, it picked them right up and we were done. It looked like we didn’t have the energy to go on.”