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State College, Pa. • By his own admission, BYU volleyball's Ben Patch did not play well the last time the Cougars faced Long Beach State.
The sophomore superstar from Provo hit .054 in a 3-1 win over the 49ers on Jan. 22, and then 1.05 the next night as The Beach handled the Cougars 3-0, the only time BYU (26-3) has been swept all season.
"Thanks for mentioning that," Patch joked as BYU players and coaches met with the media Wednesday before the NCAA Tournament matches. The top-ranked Cougars will face Long Beach State on Thursday at Penn State University's Rec Hall in a national semifinal match.
"It was a very interesting weekend. I don't want to make excuses, but I wasn't feeling well. I took some medication I probably shouldn't have taken. But yeah, it was just not the best weekend, but it was all up from there," said the normally lighthearted and playful Patch, turning serious. "We will see Long Beach again."
And the spotlight will again be on BYU's best player, a .389 hitter who feels like he has a score to settle with The Beach, as the No. 4 seed calls itself.
"It gives us confidence," Patch continued. "We are excited to go get out there and compete. Volleyball is an organic sport. It is always changing. We have changed since then and we are excited to see Long Beach tomorrow. … They are a better team than they were, but so are we."
Long Beach State coach Alan Knipe said he would love to believe it was something the 49ers did in January that slowed Patch down, but acknowledged Patch, an AVCA First-Team All-American, might have had an off weekend.
"Ben is a really good player. He's had a great year," Knipe said. "… I think it is important to have the mindset hat we would like to control him, take away some things that are comfortable for him to do, stress him a little bit. But BYU is far from the Ben Patch Show."
Unlike LBSU, which has gone with a youth movement and went 11-1 after losing to BYU at The Pyramid, the Cougars have relied on basically the same players the entire season in garnering the No. 1 seed.
"There is a lot of great talent on that team," Knipe said. "If we work and focus on just one guy, there are a lot of other guys that can swing them out of it, like all four teams that are here. I am not sure we can shut [Patch] down, is the answer, but we would like to slow him down."
The Cougars haven't played since they defeated UCLA for the MPSF championship on April 23, while LBSU got its third look at Rec Hall's court in Tuesday's smashing of Erskine. The 49ers ventured East in early March and won matches over Mount Olive and Penn State.
BYU coach Shawn Olmstead said "you could look at it both ways" in trying to decide if playing Tuesday gives LBSU any type of advantage. The Cougars practiced on Rec Hall's court Wednesday morning, and will get in another workout Thursday morning at the venue that opened in 1929 and seats 6,469 for volleyball.
"There's no doubt about our guys, that when the whistle blows, they will be ready to play," Olmstead said. "And they are going to play and compete at a very high level."
Patch said the Cougars prepared all last week as if they had a match on Saturday and won't be rusty after the layoff.
"We still feel like we've got that momentum," he said.
MPSF runner-up UCLA meets No. 3 seed Ohio State, which defeated George Mason 3-1 on Tuesday, in the second semifinal Thursday. The championship match is Saturday at 6 p.m. MDT on ESPN2.
Twitter: @drewjay —
NCAA men's volleyball championship
At Rec Hall, Penn State, State College, Pa.
Thursday's Semifinals
No. 1 BYU (26-3) vs. No. 4 Long Beach State (25-7), 4 p.m. MDT
No. 2 UCLA (25-6) vs. No. 3 Ohio St. (29-2), 6 p.m. MDT
Saturday's hampionship
Semifinal winners, 6 p.m MDT, ESPN2