The UCLA men's volleyball team lost to top-seeded BYU in four sets in the MPSF title match played in Provo, Utah on Saturday night. Scores of the match were 20-25, 19-25, 25-18, 15-25.

The Bruins, now 25-6, owned an edge in most statistical categories in the match but could not overcome 27 service errors. UCLA out hit the Cougars .342 to .329, enjoyed a 56-41 advantage in kills and had a 4.0 to 3.5 margin in total blocks. BYU had a six service aces to one edge from the line.

The Bruins will now await the NCAA committee selections on Sunday at 10 a.m. Pacific time http://www.ncaa.com/liveschedule/2016/04/24 and hope to receive one of the two at-large bids to be handed out. It would be their first NCAA bid since the 2006 team won the 19th national championship in program history. BYU earned the league's automatic NCAA bid this evening as did Ohio State, Erskine and George Mason in the their respective conference championship matches.

JT Hatch led four Bruins in double digits kills against BYU with 13 and had a career-best two block solos. Jake Arnitz added 12 (.429) while Mitch Stahl (.500) and Micah Ma'a (.400) each registered 10 kills. Ma'a also had 24 set assists and five digs. Hagen Smith recorded 26 set assists, five digs and four kills. Davis Gillett had 10 digs, his eighth double digit effort in the last 13 matches. Eric Sprague came off the bench to total seven kills (.545) and a block solo. Ma'a and Arnitz were named to the MPSF/Molten All-Tournament team.

In set one, UCLA opened up a 9-6 lead only to see the Cougars rally to even the score at 13-all and then take a lead of 13-16. The Bruins never regained their early momentum, but closed to one point at 17-18 and 20-21 on kills by Stahl. However, BYU tallied the final four points of the set to win 20-25.

In set two, BYU grabbed the early lead and was never headed. UCLA had nine service errors in this set alone. The Bruins went down 5-9, rallied to close to within 11-13 after a Sprague kill but could not get closer and dropped a 19-25 decision.

In set three, UCLA established a 6-3 lead. BYU came back to even the score at 6-all, but UCLA quickly jumped back in front and moved out to a 12-7 advantage after a kill by Ma'a. The Cougars came back to within one at 14-13, but could not pull even. The Bruins took a 19-14 lead after its only ace of the contest, by Jackson Bantle, and came away with a 25-18 win on a swing by Arnitz.

UCLA went down 6-10 and 8-15 in set four. Kills by Hatch and Sprague cut the margin to 11-16, but UCLA had no answer for another BYU spurt which opened the gap to 12-20. The Cougars took the set 15-25.