The Trojans weren’t going to let it happen again.
When the USC men’s volleyball team was up 2-0 in last year’s Kilgour Cup, UCLA fought back to win and began a 14-match winning streak that brought them their 19th NCAA title.
So when the Trojans had a 2-0 lead in Saturday night’s 30th annual Kilgour Cup, they remained determined.
Despite their best efforts, the Bruins could not turn the tables on the visiting Trojans for a repeat of history.
USC (3-5, 2-3) came to Pauley Pavilion on Saturday with the goal of gaining back ground in the Lexus Gauntlet, which they still trail 35 to 12.5.
UCLA (3-6, 1-5) had just come off a loss to Pepperdine in their home opener on Wednesday, and were looking to gain some momentum for their three-week home stand.
But from the outset, USC showed great form, winning the first game 30-19.
The second game saw a little more fight from the Bruins, who were able to work to a 23-23 tie, and another at 28-28.
But the Bruins could not finish, and let the Trojans take it at 31-29.
While USC was up two games, the Trojans knew they couldn’t relax yet, as shown by last year’s contest.
The Bruins came out in the third game willing to put up a fight and holding the lead for most of the game, all the way up until 29-27.
Then, led by sophomore C.J. Schellenberg and junior Juan Figueroa, USC tied it up at 29, and a few points later completed the sweep with a 33-31 victory in the third game.
When asked what went wrong, senior captain Paul George had plenty to say.
“Everything,” George said. “Didn’t hit well, didn’t block well, didn’t serve well. The game starts with serving; when you don’t serve tough, they run an offense that’s unstoppable ““ any team can do that.”
The statistics agree with George, as USC finished the match hitting 0.533, with 15.5 blocks and only four errors as a team.
“That was the worst blocking I’ve ever seen from a UCLA team,” coach Al Scates said. “We didn’t make any adjustments. It’s all about hitting and blocking; we let the other team hit with astronomical numbers because our blocking was terrible. It’s hard to think of anything that strikes me as really good about tonight.”
Despite posting only two blocks on the night to USC’s 15.5, the Bruins had impressive offensive attacks by two key players: Freshmen Garrett Muagututia posted 17 kills and Brett Perrine notched 15 for the Bruins.
Now 3-6 on the season, it seems as though UCLA needs to find a way to improve and get on track as quickly as possible. UCLA hosts a pair of home games against Hawai’i this week, beginning Wednesday night, when they hope to turn things around.
“This team needs to start improving rapidly,” Scates said. “To do what we did last year, come from 5-10 in league and win the NCAA championship doesn’t happen often; in fact it never happened before. So for us to wait around and think we can turn on magically like we did last year is wrong.”