The UCLA men’s volleyball team defeated the Concordia Eagles, 25-23, 21-25, 26-24, 25-20, yesterday afternoon to advance to the semifinals of the MPSF Men’s Volleyball Tournament where they will face the Pepperdine Waves. Today’s match is set to start at 3 pm PT. It will be livestreamed via subscription site Flo Sports.

Last Time Out

The Eagles started off the match putting up a heck of a fight. While the Bruins jumped out ahead early with a quick 5-2 lead, Concordia bounced back and even led on five different occasions. It forced UCLA to mount a comeback to take the first set. With the Eagles up 21-20, Kevin Kobrine tied it back up again with a kill. Then, Alex Knight landed consecutive kills to put the Bruins up for good, 23-21. On UCLA’s second set point, a Concordia service error clinched the victory for the Bruins.

After the Eagles scored the first two points in the second set, UCLA roared back with four consecutive points. Nine points later, the Bruins still led 8-7, but that was the last time they’d lead in this set, though they did tie it on three separate occasions. The last tie came at 15-15. From that point forward, UCLA was only able to score on consecutive points once and the Bruins lost the set, 25-21.

There was still no quit in Concordia after the break. Both teams fought hard and CUI even managed to push the set to a set point in their favor, 24-23. But Cole Ketrzynski tied it up 24-24 and Knight put UCLA ahead 25-24. A Concordia attack error ended this set, 26-24, in favor of the Bruins.

Even the final set proved to be a battle. It was a back-and-forth set as no team led by more than two points for most of the set. Eventually, it was tied, 17-17. UCLA managed to put together a 5-0 run on kills by Ketrzynski and Knight, a pair of Concordia attack errors and a service error from the Eagles. With the Bruins now up 22-17, you could quote Chick Hearn, “You can put this one in the refrigerator. The door's closed, the lights are out, the eggs are cooling, the butter's getting hard and the Jell-O is jiggling.” The Bruins went on to win the set 25-20 to advance to today’s match against Pepperdine in the semifinals.

Pepperdine Waves

The third-seeded Waves advanced to today’s semis by defeating sixth-seeded Stanford, 3-1, yesterday. UCLA and Pepperdine split their two regular season meetings with the Waves winning at home, 3-2, and the Bruins winning in Westwood, 3-1.

That should make for a really interesting match today. If the Bruins aren’t careful, they could find themselves on the short end of this one.

MPSF Men’s Volleyball Tournament Semifinals

Teams: No. 2 seed UCLA Bruins (15-5) vs. No. 3 seed Pepperdine Waves (13-5)
When: 3:00 pm PT, Friday, April 23, 2021
Where: Smith Fieldhouse, Provo, UT
TV: None
Live Stream: FloSports (subscription req’d)
Live Stats: UCLA StatBroadcast

Match Notes


Go Bruins!

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