Men’s Volleyball: USC tops UCI in five sets
In a battle of national championship contenders, the crucial advantage proved to be a world-class talent.
USC senior setter Micah Christenson, an All-American who started for the U.S. men’s national team last summer, made more plays than anyone on the floor to help the visiting No. 5-ranked Trojans rally for a 28-30, 25-17, 21-25, 25-23, 15-13 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation win over No.3-ranked UC Irvine in front of 1,395 at the Bren Events Center on Friday night.
Christenson amassed 52 assists, a match-high 15 digs, and also shared the team lead with five block assists. He registered the block on match point to help the Trojans (5-0, 4-0 in conference) maintain sole possession of first place.
UCI (6-2, 2-1), which could have assumed sole possession of the MPSF lead with a victory, led, 7-4 and 10-7, in the final set. But costly errors helped USC score five straight points to take the lead and eventually halt the Anteaters’ six-match winning streak.
UCI hit negative .038 in the decisive set to drop its match percentage to .261, some 44 points worse than the Trojans’ overall proficiency. UCI also had 22 service errors to USC’s 17 and had 25 hitting errors to the Trojans’ 20.
“It was small stuff and pretty obvious stuff too,” UCI Coach David Kniffin said. “I would like us to play better volleyball, but I really like our composure. I thought we played really steady, with the exception of the volleyball errors. I didn’t feel like there were many mental errors, just a missed execution here or there. And, frankly, we haven’t practiced the whole month of January, because we’ve been so busy with our match schedule. So I’m looking forward to getting back in the practice gym [after four matches in the next seven days]. The team we are now is not the team I think we’ll be at the end of the year, and I still think we’re pretty good.”
The Trojans proved to be better, largely due to Christenson, who had three kills and shared the team lead with two ace serves.
“USC is really good,” Kniffin said. “The glue to that team is an exceptional setter. And if there’s one thing that really separated the two teams tonight, it’s that every ball that [Christenson] put up was hittable and not every ball that we put up was hittable.”
UCI senior opposite Zack La Cavera converted enough hittable balls to record a career-high 21 kills, four more than sophomore outside hitter Tamir Hershko, who had eight kills in the opening set.
Christenson blocked Hershko for match point.
Junior middle blocker Jason Agopian had 10 kills and hit .562, while fellow middle blocker Andrew Benz had six kills and hit .556 for the ‘Eaters. Benz led the hosts with four block assists, while Agopian had three. Benz and Agopian were among five Anteaters with one solo block each.
Junior outside hitter Kyle Russell contributed five kills, five aces and two block assists, but hit negative .087 with seven errors in 23 total attacks. Russell’s third service error came when his jump serve sailed into the net to put USC up, 13-11, in the fifth set.
A Benz kill and a USC hitting error created a 13-13 deadlock, the 29th tie score of the match, but back-to-back blocks, the first on La Cavara, sent most of the home crowd home disappointed.
“It’s always tough to lose to USC, especially at home,” La Cavera said.
Senior All-American libero Michael Brinkley led the hosts with 12 digs, one more than Russell, while sophomore setter Michael Saeta had 47 assists, seven digs, three kills, three block assists and one solo stuff.
USC cut into a 10-7 final-set deficit with a kill and an ace, before three straight UCI hitting errors put the hosts behind, 12-10.