This match will set the table for Saturday’s final, after Long Beach State won a thrilling* five-setter in the first (25-22, 22-25, 20-25, 25-15, 22-20). It makes UCI into big BYU fans (if anyone else win the MPSF tournament, their season will almost certainly be over) and it introduces a little doubt on Selection Sunday either way because both Jeremy Dejno and Kevin Tillie sustained injuries in the match. Either way, it can’t be said that UCI’s season has ended with the loss. We don’t know that yet.
*I don’t know how thrilling it was or wasn’t, because it wasn’t on the digital airwaves. Curses!
This match pitted the two hottest teams in the nation, as BYU entered as winners of 16 of their 17 and UCLA as winners in 10 of their last 11. The only team to beat BYU in that span was the Bruins. In the regular season, both teams won in sweeps on their own home court.
It was neck-and-neck to start. While not strictly sideout after sideout, no one went ahead 2 points until the Bruins got there at 8-6. It took a BYU mistake to get them there, as libero Jaylen Reyes called for a ball that went well wide and long off the BYU pass, but was tripping over a teammate on his way to it, leading to the ball not being returned. Ben Patch‘s hitting error made it 10-7 UCLA, but Josue Rivera came up with three straight point from there, a kill and two double-blocks to knot it again. 11-10 was a long rally, ending with Sander setting Rivera for a hit that was called off the touch and out. Replays showed it to be a very close call, but UCLA didn’t even try to protest, so it was likely correct. Further ties occurred at 12 and 13 in advance of Dane Worley‘s kill making it 15-13 at the automatic timeout.
Taylor Sander finally got his first kill of the match after the timeout, the first time he or Patch got on the scoreboard. That first kill was a softie trickling over the block but his second kill, on the next rally, was classic Taylor Sander going BOOM. UCLA got their first block on the match on the rally ending 19-17, a weird play ending with Devin Young back-setting to the pin. BYU called time there. After a few sideouts, the Cougars drew even at 21 when Gonzalo Quiroga‘s hit was ruled out untouched. The flagger called it in but the up ref overruled to make it point for BYU. Curiously, the Bruins seemed to mostly be upset that no touch was called, rather than the ball landing in. UCLA called time at the 21-all mark.
For the second time in the set, UCLA were called for a service line fault making it 22-all. UCLA reached set point first at 24-23. Beanpole Robart Page rotated back to serve and launched a teensy little jump-float that BYU nonetheless dug well. Ryan Boyce went to the left side with Patch…. and the ball fell back on their side. The double-block by Connor Bannan and Trent Kersten ended it 25-23 for UCLA, without Patch recording even a single kill in set 1.
UCLA hit .406 in the first set to BYU’s .250, out-killing them 18 to 9. It’s a minor miracle the set was as close it was. BYU held a slender advantage in blocking at 4.0 to 2.0, but getting almost nothing (or on percentage, less than nothing) from the high-flying pin hitters can’t be a recipe for success for the Cougars.
UCLA took the first two-point edge in set 2 with a service ace off the hand of Spencer Rowe, and made it three by denying Sander on the next rally, leading to BYU’s first timeout of the set. The Cougars got the sideout with a triple block against Page, coming back from time, but it went on sideout after sideout for a while. Patch finally got a notch on his belt on the rally ending 9-7. After several Bruin block touches on the point two rallies later, Rivera finally was able to angle a shot off the block and out to draw the Bruins back within 10-9. The Cougars drew even at 11’s with another kill, on a joust win, for Rivera. The Puerto Rican reached double figures in kills with his 10th on the rally ending 12-12. That sent Patch back to serve, and he went to the 7-footer Page with his serve, rebounding off him for an ace. His kill to make it 15-14 at last had him in the black in hitting percentage for the night.
The Bruins went ahead again at 16-15 with a left-side kill from Quiroga that didn’t look all that hard to field, but it still fell in. Sander netted on the 17-16 rally to put the Bruins back ahead two, but the Cougars just as easily knotted it again. After UCLA’s timeout, Quiroga reached double-digits for the night, for the first Bruin to get there, giving UCLA again a tiny advantage. 20-19 was a great rally, with Patch able to keep a rally alive by sending over a free ball while sitting on his wallet. The crowd in attendance disagreed with the determination that a later UCLA hit attempt hit the block (rather than the net) to keep it alive, and UCLA eventually got the kill. There were boos coming out in the Smith Field House as BYU called their last timeout down 21-19.
Sideout after sideout followed until 23-21, when Russ Lavaja‘s hit flew long to give UCLA set point. Steve Rindfleisch subbed in for Boyce there, but any tactical benefit was nil as Sander’s hitting error ended it 25-21 for UCLA. The Bruins again hit out of their minds in set 2, with 19 kills on .630 efficiency. No real way to lose when you do that.
BYU got off to the better start in set 3, jumping ahead 3-0 in a blink. At 7-5, UCLA were called for a foot-fault on service for the third time in the match. Steve Vail suggested on the broadcast that he was having issues with the BYU student section on the end line. The Cougars extended to 11-7, their first 4-point lead of the night, after a long rally ending with a breadbasket-dig for Boyce and Lavaja setting Sander for the terminating kill. BYU had a great serve out of the timeout, eliciting a UCLA overpass, but Kersten obliterated Young’s middle hit attempt. On 11-8, Sander got his first set of the set (setty set set) and hit the ball out, but a net fault by Quiroga bailed him out. BYU’s lead reached five at 16-11 on a Lavaja/Rivera rejection of Page, leading to UCLA’s last timeout.
Rivera came up with an ace heading back from the timeout, giving the Cougars a likely insurmountable 6-point lead, as UCLA looked to pack it in and prepare for set 4. The advantage reached 7 at 19-12 and then 8 at 20-12, 9 at 22-13 and then to 10, as it got a bit silly. At 23-13, Sander came up with a left-side block that was ruled out for a UCLA kill. Replays showed it actually should have been called in to make it set point BYU at 24-13. That sparked a 5-1 UCLA run before BYU finally finished it off 25-18.
Both sides had 11 kills in set 3, but UCLA hit just .077 on efficiency, with 5 BYU blocks coming up big.
The Bruins rattled off three straight to start the 4th, powered by Quiroga’s serve. The Cougars called a quick timeout when a service ace brought it to 5-1. It was a very tough serve, off Spencer Rowe‘s hand one that BYU couldn’t possibly have legally returned being that it pinballed off two of the passers in a blink. The Bruin run continued after the subsequent timeout with Boyce whistled as a back-row blocker. Rivera’s hit went long to make it 7-1 UCLA.
Tyler Heap came in to set, and it was as if a switch got flipped. The Cougars took four straight to liven the somber crowd, a left-side block forcing UCLA’s timeout. UCLA finally got the sideout on a service error to make it 8-6, a competitive match again. The Cougars drew it even again at 8-8, meaning the teams had effectively traded 7-1 runs. Heap and Lavaja came up with a double middle block against Quiroga to give BYU their first lead of the set. The margin stabilised for a while after that, and we had yet another tight set on our hands. Page obliterated a roll shot to send it to the automatic timeout with UCLA on top 15-14.
At 17-16, the Bruins came up with the middle block against Lavaja, a pretty rare sight this season, giving them the two-point edge again, but BYU just as quickly tied it again at 18. 18-all was a great rally, with Quiroga putting in about 6 different hit attempts before he finally did get the kill. Further ties came at 19 and 20, with 20-all being easily the longest point of the match with the ball crossing the net many times. It finally ended with a Ben Patch kill off hands and long. UCLA called time to staunch the momentum, but the crowd were way into it at this point after it sounding like a library earlier.
Sander came up with an important ace on 22-21 to give BYU the two-point lead. This meant BYU were able to sideout to victory. Their first set point on service ended with a mistake by Rivera playing a ball that was going wide, to make it 24-23. The Bruins staved off the second set point on their service, leading us to extras in the 4th. Ben Patch rotated to service at 25-24, and took a weird out-of-system set with Heap standing off the court area to find him back-row. The ball found the floor, sending us to a 5th.
Both teams hit pretty well in the 4th. UCLA actually came up with a few more kills, but BYU hit a little bit more efficiently. All statistical categories were close.
BYU came up with a couple of big middle blocks, starting the set on serve, to take the early advantage. UCLA came back even at 3 with Rowe coming up a solo stuff block of his own up the middle. The Bruins found another block to go up 4-3 as BYU’s setting issues continued — Heap was no magic bullet. But Patch put the Cougars back on top again at 6-5 with a perfect ace falling between the human goalposts, and a rejection of Robart Page presaged UCLA’s first timeout.
Patch ripped another big serve after the timeout, but it led to a net fault called on Heap. Rivera found hands for his 18th kill of the night, already past his career high, to send us to the side change at 8-6. Sander searched for the seam in the block on the left side on 8-7, but found only Kersten and Page, tying the match at 8’s. Lavaja sided the Cougars out at 9-8, and then on 10-9, BYU came up with block touch after block touch after block touch, finally coming up with a terminating block to make it 11-9, and UCLA’s final timeout.
The first play back from the timeout was whistled dead with a non-obvious net fault called against BYU. Hmm…. 11-10 was another long rally, with Quiroga’s hit glancing off the net to deflect just out of bounds. No way BYU was touching it wherever it landed, so that was a lucky break for them. Sander came up huge from the pipe, on his own serve, for the kill making it 13-10, and Rivera brought BYU to match point on the next rally. A block, getting the team to 22.5 on the night, ended it.
#1 BYU d. #4 UCLA (23-25, 21-25, 25-18, 26-24, 15-10)
That was one amazing comeback by the Cougars. You could hear a pin drop in the Smith Field House when it was 7-1 Bruins in the 4th. I certainly thought it was probably done and dusted at that point. But remembering the big comeback the Cougars had against UCI in the match at Irvine earlier this year, I really shouldn’t have.
Rivera led the way for the Cougars with 19 kills, picking up the slack for Patch and Sander. Patch rebounded from his 0-fer in set 1 to end the match with 17 kills, which is a reasonable total for five sets and a very good one for four. Sander wound up hitting just .212 on the night at 12/5/33. BYU fed their middles a little bit more than I’ve usually seen them do in past matches, with Young and Lavaja coming up with 26 swings between them.
The Bruins, who used not a single bench player in this match (just 6 starters and a libero) were led by Quiroga’s 22 kills to in fact lead all scorers. Worley added 14 and Kersten and Page both had 11, though Page was also double-digits in errors to end his night at just .040. It’s amazing to me how often he gets blocked, considering he towers over everyone else in the country. It’s got to be on the setting, at least somewhat.
BYU will now face Long Beach State for the MPSF Championship. UCLA’s season is probably over, though I tell you what, I wouldn’t mind seeing them again.
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