University Southern California Trojans
USC
3-13, 3-11MPSF
UCLA
15-3, 11-3MPSF
No. 4 UCLA Men's Volleyball Downs USC
February 27, 2016 | Men's Volleyball
JT Hatch had 13 kills and 4 aces and Jake Arnitz added 10 kills to lead the No. 4-ranked UCLA men's volleyball team to a 25-16, 25-20, 25-27, 25-16 win over unranked USC in a Mountain Pacific Sports Federation contest on Saturday (Feb. 27) at USC's Galen Center.
UCLA improved to 15-3 overall and 11-3 in the MPSF, while USC fell to 3-13 overall and 3-11 in the MPSF.
Lucas Yoder led USC with 17 kills while hitting .516 and he added 6 digs. Alex Slaught had 8 kills for the Trojans and Brooks Varni had 7 digs.
Micah Ma'a added 9 killls and 9 digs for the Bruins, while Mitch Stahl had 8 kills (hitting .727), Hagen Smith had 7 kills (hitting .875) and 3 aces and Oliver Martin had 6 kills (hitting .750).
UCLA hit .386 in the match to USC's .187. The Bruins also had more digs (38 to 28), aces (10 to 5) and blocks (5.5 to 3.0).
UCLA jumped out to a 7-1 lead in the first set and, although USC pulled within 2 points at 10-8, the Trojans could never overcome a Bruins team that hit .524 and had 11 digs. UCLA got off to another quick start in the second set at 6-3 and held off USC the rest of the way while hitting .444 and getting 12 more digs. UCLA had a 15-11 lead in the third set before Troy tied it at 17-17 and then the set see-sawed until USC went up 24-22 only to see the Bruins score the next 3 points, but the Trojans recovered to tally the set's final 2 points on a UCLA hitting error and a block by Jack Yoder and Josh Kirchner (USC hit .379 in the set). In the fourth set, UCLA forged ahead 5-2 and then 12-5, a margin that USC could not surmount as UCLA hit .417 in the set.
USC next plays a road-and-home MPSF series against No. 15 Cal Baptist, visiting the Lancers on March 3 and then hosting CBU in the Galen Center on March 5. Both matches start at 7 p.m.
