Men’s Volleyball: ‘Eaters waste epic rally
One of the most stirring comebacks in UC Irvine men’s volleyball history amounted to merely a temporary diversion for visiting USC on Friday night.
The unranked Trojans halted their five-match losing streak by posting a resilient 25-23, 40-42, 25-23, 25-23 victory in a memorable Mountain Pacific Sports Federation match at the Bren Events Center.
The No. 6-ranked Anteaters rallied from an 18-10 deficit and survived 13 set points to claim the marathon second set, as senior Michael Saeta continually came up with clutch kills to prolong the set.
Saeta, who opened the match at setter, had 14 kills in the second set after netting two in the opening set. Ten times, a Saeta kill staved off set point and he also boomed an ace serve to give the Anteaters a 40-39 lead.
A Reid Dominguez kill put UCI up, 41-40, and middle blocker Matthew Younggren closed it out for the hosts with a stuff block to end the longest set in the MPSF this season.
In addition to the eight-point deficit, UCI overcame eight missed serves in the second set alone.
UCI again erased an eight-point deficit in the fourth set, rallying from down, 22-14, to knot the score at 23-23.
But the Trojans (3-7, 2-5 in conference) scored two straight points to close out the victory in their fifth straight road contest.
Saeta finished with a team-best 21 kills and hit .444. The 6-foot-5 lefty added 11 assists, a match-high four aces and five digs.
Scott Stadick, a 7-0 freshman middle blocker, hit .450 with 12 kills and sophomore outside hitter David Parker came off the bench to produce eight kills and hit .375 for the Anteaters (8-4, 5-3).
UCI hit .259 as a team and finished with 19 service errors, four more than the Trojans.
USC was led by senior Lucas Yoder’s 29 kills, while junior Gianluca Grasso, an Orange Coast College transfer, had 24 kills. Yoder hit .360 and Grasso hit .354 to help the visitors hit .285 as a team.
“All we’ve been doing all season is showing these moments where we are such a potential top team,” UCI Coach David Kniffin said. “But we just lack the consistency that champions demonstrate.
“In that second set, not to take away from what other guys were doing, but we were led by [Saeta] in that set, and other guys supported him. But to have one guy carry such a heavy load for the next three sets … We had no illusion that that would happen. We just lacked the execution down the stretch.”
UCI’s two kill leaders coming in, seniors Tamir Hershko and Thomas Hodges, both struggled.
Hershko, who had a season-best 19 kills in a road upset against No. 3-ranked BYU last week, had three kills on 11 swings (negative .091).
Hodges, who came in with a team-best 113 kills, seven more than Hershko, had three kills on 15 swings (negative .200).
UCI, coming off a stretch in which it played six of seven matches on the road, began a run of five straight home matches. Next is Long Beach State on Friday at 7 p.m.
Twitter: @BarryFaulkner5
