UCLA
Hawai'i (Quarterfinal)
MVB Defeats Hawai'i in Four to Advance
April 17, 2016 | Men's Volleyball
The second-seeded UCLA men's volleyball team advanced to the MPSF Playoff semifinals with a four-set win over seventh-seeded Hawai'i on Saturday night in Pauley Pavilion. Scores of the Quarterfinal win were 25-16, 25-16, 22-25, 25-21. UCLA improved its record to 24-5 on the year.
UCLA will next meet No. 3 seed Long Beach State which defeated Pepperdine in straight sets on Thursday night at 5 p.m. (MT) in Provo, Utah (live stream on BYUtv.org). In the other MPSF semifinal match, top-seeded BYU, a straight-set winner over UC Irvine, will host No. 5 seed UC Santa Barbara which defeated Stanford in five sets. The MPSF Championship match will be played at 7 p.m. (MT) on Saturday in Provo.
The Bruins got rolling behind a strong serve and block to put away the Rainbow Warriors. UCLA out aced the visitors 10 to 4 and won the blocking battle 11.0 to 2.0. Jake Arnitz led UCLA with 16 kills (.483) and had two aces. Mitch Stahl topped the Bruin blockers with six block assists, added two aces and hit .714 on seven swings. Oliver Martin had seven kills (.455) and five blocks. Micah Ma'a recorded a pair of aces to tie for the school single-season record (56 - with Adam Naeve-2001 and Gonzalo Quiroga - 2014). Hagen Smith tallied five kills, nine digs, 22 set assists, an ace and three blocks. JT Hatch had eight kills and a couple of aces. Davis Gillett came up with four digs.
In set one, UCLA pulled away from an 8-all tie to lead 16-11 on Stahl kill. A Martin kill left the Bruins in front 22-15 and after a couple of UH errors the set went to UCLA by a 25-16 count.
In set two, the Bruins had no hitting errors on 25 swings while hitting .560. UCLA pulled away from a 7-all tie to lead 16-11 after a Martin block. Hawai'i closed to 17-14, but the Bruins quickly put together a run to go up 21-14. Kills by Arnitz and Stahl ended the set at 25-16.
In set three, Hawai'i broke an 8-all tie with a big run to move out to a 10-20 advantage. UCLA closed to 19-22 after an ace from Hatch, but UH held on for the win. The Bruins hit just .077 and had eight hitting errors in the set.
Set four was tied at points 8-10. The Bruins then ripped off three straight for a 13-10 lead. UH moved back to within two at 18-16. UCLA scored the next three points on a service error and kills by Arnitz and Smith. Another Arnitz kill ended the match with a 25-21 win.
