‘Eaters sweep Trojans

LOS ANGELES — With 15 days since its last match, the UC Irvine men’s volleyball team had certainly had enough time to catch its collective breath, heading into Thursday’s Mountain Pacific Sports Federation contest at USC’s Galen Center.

And the No. 2-ranked Anteaters wasted little time knocking the wind from the overmatched Trojans, showing only minor rust in dusting the hosts, 30-21, 32-30, 30-21.

The Anteaters (22-3, 15-3 in conference) had 17.5 team blocks to the Trojans’ 3.5, and hit .346 as a team, compared to negative 0.24 for No. 12-ranked USC (10-12, 7-10).

The triumph extended UCI’s winning streak to 10 matches, heading into a showdown at MPSF-leading and top-ranked Pepperdine Saturday.

Senior Jayson Jablonsky, the 2006 National and MPSF Player of the Year, blasted a match-high 17 kills, as well as two aces.

Senior setter Brian Thornton, a second-team All-American last season, ran down some errant passes to help produce a match-high 36 assists. Thornton, who at 6-foot-3 gives away as many as five inches to opposing attackers, also led the winners with two solo blocks, while adding three block assists.

Senior All-American Matt Webber had nine kills, two aces, seven kills and matched the blocking line of UCI middle blockers David Smith and Aaron Harrell, who each recorded five block assists and one solo block.

“It was a good win; it was fun,” said Webber, who acknowledged a little rust, but liked his team’s overall intensity, particularly when it was down, 20-17, 27-24, 28-25 and 29-26, in Game 2.

With Jablonsky ripping jump serves, USC committed a net violation, then shanked an arcing Jablonsky serve, before Harrell and freshman Cole Reinholm combined on a stuff block to pull the visitors even, 29-29.

After USC gained a 30-29 edge, Jablonsky produced a kill from the back row, Smith and Webber teamed for a stuff block, and a hitting error by the Trojans kept the sweep on schedule for the Anteaters, who have lost only five of 35 games during their 10-match winning streak.

“That was really nice,” UCI Coach John Speraw said of the Game 2 comeback. “It obviously helped us get out of here a little quicker and it kind of took the wind out of their sails. The reason they were even close was because of our serving and hitting errors. But Jablonsky went back there [to the service line] and banged away and we were able to pull off [the comeback].”

Speraw said he liked his team’s intensity, especially considering the layoff. He also liked its supremacy at the net.

“I thought we did a good job at the net,” Speraw said. “We blocked a ton of balls. We read the [back-row attack] really well. And 17.5 stuffs will get the job done in three games.”

UCI, the defending MPSF regular-season champion, has four regular-season matches remaining, including a big one Saturday in Malibu. The Waves (20-1, 16-1) and swept the ‘Eaters in their first meeting, Jan. 27, at the Bren Events Center. That loss snapped a nine-match winning skein for UCI.

“I’m looking forward to the fact that we’re playing [No. 1-ranked] Pepperdine, because when you play a team that big, it’s a change, in terms of how you swing at the ball and how you attack the block,” Speraw said. “It’s hard to simulate that [size] in practice. So, I’m glad we get them late in the year, because it will prepare us well for Pepperdine and BYU down the road, if we can get by the first round of the [MPSF] playoffs, which is a big if. We have some big battles up ahead, so we’re just getting warmed up.”

Thornton, among six of the top seven players who returned from last year’s NCAA semifinalist, said he is anxious to see how this team fares down the stretch.

“We want to finish off playing the best that you can,” Thornton said. “We’re just concentrating on getting better, every single time. If we keep getting better, we’ll be playing our best, when the playoffs come around.

“In terms of comparing this team to last year’s team, I think we’re completely different, so, I think it’s hard to compare,” Thornton said. “But I believe that we’re on a plane going upward so, hopefully, we’ll continue that way.”