UCLA
USC (Quarterfinals)
Season Comes to an End with 3-1 Loss to Rivals USC
April 23, 2011 | Men's Volleyball
April 23, 2011
Los Angeles, CA -
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The 8th ranked UCLA men's volleyball team battled hard against the top-ranked Trojans, but ultimately fell short as they ended their 2011 campaign with a 3-1 loss to USC in the MPSF Quarterfinals.
The Bruins finished the year at 16-15 overall and finished in 8th place in the MPSF conference. Meanwhile, the Trojans improved to 22-2 on the year and will move on to MPSF semifinals next week.
UCLA hung tough in the first set, always staying within a couple of points and eventually tying the score at 21-21 before USC took a timeout. The two teams traded points to make it 22-22 and then the Bruins brought in junior Alex Scattareggia to serve. UCLA would then win the next two points under his service to give them two set points at 24-22. After a Scattareggia service error, the Trojans committed a blocking error to give the Bruins a 25-23 first set win.
The Bruins built off the momentum of the first set and came out and took the first three points of the second set. But USC proved to be resilient, winning 10 of the next 14 points to go up 10-7. From there the Trojans never looked back and ended up taking the second set by the score of 25-18.
In the third set, the Bruins shook off the frustration of losing the second set and jumped out to an early 6-3 lead. But once again the Trojans would fight back, evening the score at 6-6 and trading points with the Bruins until the score became deadlocked at 12-12. USC would again regain the momentum by taking the next four points and would go on to finish off the set at 25-18.
The fourth set would see the two sides battle back and forth to start the set. But just as it had gone all night, the Bruins simply could not grab the lead and fell behind by four points at 15-11. The team would not quit though, pushing back to get the score to 18-17 after a service error and an attack error by the Trojans. They would stay close with the Trojans and get the score to 20-19, but eventually USC would prove to be too much, as the Trojans sealed the four set win with a 25-21 fourth set victory.
Freshman Gonzalo Quiroga led the Bruins with 15 kills and 7 digs in the loss. Junior Kyle Caldwell chipped in with 9 kills, 8 digs and 30 assists as well. Junior Jack Polales had a team-high 12 digs in the match while senior Tom Hastings, playing in his final match as a Bruin, contributed 8 digs. Junior Thomas Amberg recorded 9 kills as well on a team-high .353 hitting percentage.
Overall, the Bruins hit just .203 while the Trojans hit .306. UCLA also committed 27 attack errors in the loss. Tony Ciarelli led the Trojans with 21 kills.
