In many aspects, not much has changed for Los Angeles’ crosstown rivals.
In the two teams’ first meeting of the season, UCLA took a four-set victory to continue its undefeated season while USC remained winless.
Those streaks have since been broken but the play on the court has remained much the same.
The No. 4 Bruins (15-3, 11-3 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) defeated the unranked Trojans (3-13, 3-11) in four sets – 25-16, 25-20, 25-27, 25-16.
After suffering through slow starts through the middle of the season, the Bruins continued their two-game streak of hot starts.
“I think the guys have really taken on the task of seeing that ‘Hey, we’ve been starting out slow and we want to really bring more energy,'” said coach John Speraw. “So that’s nice to see that they’re taking some ownership over that.”
The Bruins once again displayed a balanced attack with sophomore JT Hatch leading the way. The outside hitter tallied 13 kills and a career-high four service aces.
Sophomore outside hitter Jake Arnitz and freshman setter/hitter Micah Ma’a followed up with 10 and nine kills, respectively.
USC had two main contributors Saturday in the forms of outside hitter Lucas Yoder and outside hitter Alex Slaught.
Yoder pilled on 17 kills while Slaught added eight of his own.
Jumping out early, UCLA took at 7-1 lead in the first set. USC fought back with a little fire courtesy of Yoder but would end up falling 25-16.
The start of the second set was nearly identical to the first. UCLA jumped out to another early lead because of strong hitting and staunch defense.
On multiple occasions, USC was able to pull within three of UCLA but got no closer as UCLA closed out the second set 25-20.
USC struck first in the third set and UCLA never held a lead greater than two.
The Trojans found themselves up 24-22 but after a service error and a spike into the net, the Bruins had tied it up at 24.
Despite the Bruins’ late battle, the Trojans defended their home taking the set 27-25.
“I think we lost a bit of focus in the middle of the match,” said junior middle blocker Mitch Stahl. “We bled some points and let them back into the game. At the end of the day you just got to be able to stop that.”
In the final set, the Bruins pulled away early and never looked back. UCLA completed its season sweep of USC with a 25-16 victory.
“That was good for us to keep winning,” Hatch said. “We saw some good stuff – we obviously got a lot of stuff to work on still but it’s looking good going into next week.”