University of California loses to University of California, Santa Barbara on Thursday
The University of California men’s volleyball team had a match on Saturday against the University of California, Santa Barbara.
What followed in the contest was not something that the Trojans had expected. UCSB was able to hand out a defeat to the number one ranked volleyball team in a Mountain Pacific Sports Federation match.
However, as was expected, the Trojans did not go down with an easy push rather, it took five long and hard sets in order to upset USC.
By the time that the crowd at the Galen Center had seen a Trojan defeat and were watching as the victorious UCSB was jumping with joy in the court, the scoreboard read 20-25, 25-23, 21-25, 25-18, 16-14.
With their recent win, the Gauchos have now improved their number of wins in the MPSF to a total of 16 victories. In comparison, the number five ranking UC Santa Barbara team has suffered losses that amount to be 14 so far. The Gauchos do not plan to increase
the number of defeats they have had in the MPSF as the team is eyeing the tournament trophy.
UC Santa Barbara will be having a go at the semi-final that is scheduled to take place on Thursday. The two other teams that are in the Final Four other than UC Santa Barbara and the Trojans are Penn State and Ohio State.
The key factor that contributed towards the successful win of the Gauchos was team coordination. UC Santa Barbara played like a well-synchronised team that had both its attack and defence working properly. The Gauchos kept on raining down relentless kills
on the Trojans and did a good job of blocking the ones coming onto their side of the court.
Despite the fact that it was a team effort from the Gaucho side, the players that stood prominent in the match were Jeff Menzel as well as Cullen Irons. Menzel was able to keep the pressure on the Trojans by posting his record number of highest kills in
the season that amounted to be 28.
Menzel was supported by his teammate Irons, who kept the scoreboard ticking by adding 15 kills of his own. Not only did Irons contribute in the kills department, he also made his presence felt by making digs that amounted to be 12.
The senior Gaucho player, Jeff Menzel made the following comments when the match finished, “A lot of the experts didn't think we could do it but we knew in our hearts that our best volleyball was ahead of us. Now we've just got two more games to get to where
we want to be.”
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