This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Provo • BYU's No. 1-ranked men's volleyball team left little doubt which team should be the overall No. 1 seed when the NCAA Tournament begins next month in State College, Pa., rolling past No. 2 UCLA 3-1 on Saturday night at sold-out and rowdy Smith Fieldhouse.
Adding to their MPSF regular-season title, the Cougars (26-3) powered past the mistake-prone Bruins (25-6) to claim the conference tournament crown, and star opposite hitter Ben Patch picked up the tournament MVP award after posting 14 kills and a .370 hitting percentage.
So the Cougars turn their attention to Sunday morning's 11 a.m. MT NCAA Tournament selection announcement, fairly confident that they will see a No. 1 next to their name on NCAA.com's live stream. Coach Shawn Olmstead isn't banking on that, but he is confident that the Cougars probably haven't seen the last of the Bruins.
"I am pretty comfortable [saying] we are going to see that team again here pretty soon," Olmstead said.
Indeed, UCLA can play much better, Bruins coach John Speraw said, while also praising BYU - which has defeated the Bruins three times this season, all by 3-1 scores - as the best team he's faced this season.
UCLA shot itself in the foot time and again, committing 27 service errors and 18 hitting errors. The Cougars won a pair of 3-1 contests in Los Angeles three weeks ago, and this one went roughly the same way.
"I thought offensively we played a much better volleyball match than we did three weeks ago," Speraw said. "Unfortunately our service game was the worst of the year, maybe the worst I have seen our team serve in years."
BYU hit .329 and the Bruins hit .342, but aside from the third set BYU controlled the match. But the Cougars aren't satisfied, Brenden Sander said.
"We are beyond hungry" to win a national title, he said.
And the crowd of 4,875, the largest this season, enjoyed every minute of it. The curtain on the west side of the court was drawn back for the first time this season so fans in the bleachers in the southwest corner could see the action.
There were reports that hundreds of fans were turned away.
"The atmosphere is amazing," said Patch, who was snubbed for the MPSF player of the year after the regular season in favor of Stanford's James Shaw, his good friend. "It is electric every time we play, but tonight it was incredible. I have never seen it that full in the fieldhouse. Sometimes it gets to such a high decibel that you can't even hear yourself. They are amazing."
Speraw agreed, calling environment "great for volleyball" and a "special opportunity" for his players; JT Hatch led the Bruins with 13 kills and Jake Arnitz added 12.
The scores were 25-20, 25-19, 18-25 and 25-15 as UCLA rose up in the third set with a .583 hitting percentage, got some serves to stay in play, and rattled the Cougars a bit with some awe-inspiring kills. But the visitors returned to their error-filled ways in the fourth, and BYU rolled in the fourth after hitting just .111 in the third.
"They are a very aggressive serving team," BYU setter Leo Durkin said. "We went in knowing they would be getting after it. …. You just attribute more errors to their aggressiveness."
UCLA fell to 25-6, but will probably make the six-team field as at at-large entrant. The biggest suspense is whether UCLA or MIVA champion Ohio State will get the No. 2 seed and a bye into Thursday's semifinals, as BYU almost assuredly will.
Sander added 11 kills and Price Jarman five, including the match-winner, for BYU. Led by the only starting senior, Michael Hatch, the Cougars had seven blocks. Durkin and Sander made the all-tournament team, along with UCLA's Arvitz and Micah Ma'a, a freshman from Hawaii.
"I am excited for the guys," Olmstead said. " I was really impressed with their composure through that third set when things were obviously going the opponent's way. The guys were able to rebound really well in that fourth set and they just stuck to it. I am just really happy for them."
Twitter: @drewjay —
Storylines
R The top-ranked Cougars roll past mistake-prone UCLA for the third time this season.
• Ben Patch has 14 kills, Brenden Sander adds 11 and BYU improves to 26-3.
• The Cougars should get the No. 1 overall seed when the NCAA Tournament selections are announced Sunday morning.