April 11, 2007

Box Score

Evan Patak had 20 kills and Theo Brunner added 13 kills to lead the No. 5-ranked UC Santa Barbara men's volleyball team to a 30-24, 30-15, 30-25 sweep over No. 12 USC in a Mountain Pacific Sports Federation match on Wednesday (April 11) in USC's Galen Center.

The Gauchos improved to 19-10 overall and 14-7 in the MPSF, while USC fell to 12-14 overall and 9-12 in the MPSF.

Patak hit .405 and Brunner was at .800. UCSB posted a .489 hitting percentage and didn't have a hitting error until it was 7-7 in the third game. The Gauchos also had 6 aces.

For USC, Juan Figueroa had 15 kills. The Trojans hit just .362 and were outblocked, 6.5 to 1.0.

UC Santa Barbara pulled away midway through the first game by scoring 2 straight points to make it 18-16 and USC wasn't able to threaten the rest of that game as the Gauchos hit .818. In the second game, UCSB jumped out to an early 8-5 lead behind consecutive aces by Bryan Berman and Troy could never catch up while the Gauchos hit .667 and served 4 aces. The third game seesawed until 14-14 when UCSB scored 7 of the next 8 points to open a 21-15 lead, enabling the Gauchos to cruise in for the victory.

USC concludes its regular season on Saturday (April 14) with an MPSF home match against No. 8 Cal State Northridge at 7:30 p.m. in the Lyon Center. A Trojan win or a loss by Pacific in either of its matches against Pepperdine this Friday or Saturday would clinch USC's first MPSF playoff berth since 2001.