When it rains, it pours.
On a night when the water fell heavily from the sky, so too did the points come in bunches in an epic five-game match between rival men’s volleyball teams No. 5 UCLA and No. 11 USC.
The Trojans and Bruins split the first four sets without much contest. But in the game that mattered most, the fifth and final set, the competition was as close as a rivalry match could get.
In the end, it was USC who pulled out the victory Wednesday night as both teams pushed themselves to their breaking point. The Bruins fell in five to the Trojans at the Galen Center 26-30, 24-30, 30-23, 30-18, 16-18, and drop to 5-3 and 2-2 in MPSF play.
“It was pretty frustrating (to lose the match after winning Games 3 and 4),” said outside hitter Garrett Muagututia, who finished the night with 19 kills and six blocks. “I mean we lost, but we fought hard; we were in a hole.”
The matchup was like night and day.
The first two games got the Trojan fans on their feet, but then the Bruins quickly turned the match upside down.
Battling back, Muagututia and the rest of the team quickly quieted the Trojan cheers.
UCLA outhit its rival .458 to .286 in Game 3 and .800 to .071 in Game 4, helped in large part to Ryan Ratelle’s contributions and Brett Perrine, who played the match at outside, as opposed to his normal spot at opposite. Ratelle added 14 kills for UCLA and hit .571, and Perrine chipped in 13 spikes and eight digs with his new passing duties.
When the Bruins tied the match up at two sets apiece, one could only wonder which team would dominate the fifth game.
But neither team ever took a commanding lead like they had earlier in the night.
“(Game 5) definitely felt different because it was the first close game,” said Ratelle, who came in for Sean O’Malley at opposite in Game 2. “It was the first time both teams were battling. In the first four games one team would jump ahead and crush the other team. It was the only game that was head to head.”
Neither the Bruins nor the Trojans got ahead by more than two points, and it would end that way as well.
“We played hard as we could.” Ratelle said. “It was those little plays. We couldn’t convert on them and they dug us and they came back and converted. That’s all it was. It’s not that we didn’t fight harder or they fought harder; it was little things we couldn’t convert.”
After the match, USC’s team was bombarded by Trojan fans on the court while the Bruins quietly marched into the locker room.
The Trojans have now won two of the last three meetings between the crosstown rivals. This time it was USC senior Juan Figueroa who caused the most problems for the UCLA defense. The Puerto Rican outside hitter had 20 kills in the contest, the most of any player on either side.
Despite the loss, which was the second in a row for the Bruins, what coach Al Scates had to say afterwards was mostly upbeat. He focused on the determination the Bruins showed in battling back after starting the night with a 2-0 deficit.
“He said he was impressed that we were able to fight back,” Ratelle said of Scates. “We battled back and there was never a point where we gave up.”
PEPPERDINE NEXT: The Bruins will try to break out of their recent funk Friday night at Pepperdine.
The No. 2 ranked Waves (4-1) lost their first game of the season Thursday night against No. 10 UC Irvine.
UCLA was swept in two matchups with Pepperdine last season. The Bruins last win at Firestone Fieldhouse came in 2004.