University of Southern California defeats University of California, Irvine by 3-1
A much-awaited thrilling semi-final of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation tournament took place on Thursday.
The two top teams that competed against each other were the number one ranked University of Southern California and the number two ranked University of California, Irvine. As was expected, the contest between the two teams was exciting to watch. After the
game reached its close when the fourth set finished, the Trojans emerged victories over their rivals.
As a much disappointed Anteater team was leaving the courts of the Galen Centre and a jubilant Trojan side was celebrating with aplomb, the scoreboard summarised the match by displaying the following final set scores, 25-19, 22-25, 25-20, 25-23.
UC Irvine has had a season of struggle, despite the fact that their overall season wins are greater than their defeats, the gap between the two is not that great. The number of times that the Anteaters have been able to tally a win for themselves amount
to be 19. They have been able to earn these victories after undergoing losses that total to be 12.
In contrast to this, the Trojans have now secured themselves a seat that will take them to the final of the MPSF. By the winning their most recent game, the Trojans have been able to improve their overall season statistics to an admirable figure of 23 wins.
They have been able to bag these tremendous victories at a minimal cost of losing only two matches so far.
USC was able to seal the deal on the Anteater because of team coordination and precision play. Both the attack and the defence of the Trojans were hard to counter. The players that stood prominent in the Trojan side were Tony Ciarelli and Murphy Troy.
Ciarelli is the junior outside hitter of his team whereas Troy is a senior outside hitter. Ciarelli was able to help his team by registering a total number of 23 kills in the entire match. Troy kept the scoreboard ticking by adding 17 kills of his own.
The Trojans are looking to improve their count of wins by winning the final of the MPSF. The team that USC will be facing to earn the champion title of the MPSF is the number five ranked University of California, Santa Barbara. The deciding match of the
tournament is scheduled to take place at the Galen Center on Saturday. The time for the first serve is set at 7:30 p.m.
The senior outside hitter of UC Santa Barbara, Jeff Menzel, made the following comments about the upcoming match, “Not a lot of teams give us any credit and that's their downfall. BYU did that. Long Beach did that. Let's hope USC doesn't do that.”
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