UC Santa Barbara got tremendous offense performances from two players as it knocked out Pepperdine in the NCAA Tournament in Columbus, Ohio, and Lewis ousted Penn State.
Rob Espero has interviews with both winning coaches, Dan Friend of Lewis and Rick McLaughlin of UCSB.
We recap both matches as the semifinals are set with top-seeded Hawai’i playing third-seeded UCSB, followed by second-seeded BYU taking on fourth-seeded Lewis.
UCSB 3, PEPPERDINE 1 — Roy McFarland and Randy DeWeese had 21 kills each as the Gauchos, the Big West champions, beat MPSF at-large Pepperdine 25-23, 25-22, 22-25, 28-26 for their 11th victory in a row.
McFarland had five errors in 47 swings and hit .340 to go with eight digs and three blocks as UCSB improved to 16-4. DeWeese hit .317 and had three aces, 13 digs, and five blocks. Ryan Wilcox had 11 kills, hit .333, and had an assist, two aces and six digs. Casey McGarry had two kills in four errorless tries, 59 assists, six digs, and a block. His team hit .336.
Pepperdine, which ended its season 13-7, hit .254. Spencer Wickens led with 14 kills, two assists, eight digs, and a block. Jacob Steele and Austin Wilmot had 12 kills each. Steeler had nine digs and five blocks, while Wilmot hit .476 and had an assist, two digs, and six blocks. Bryce Dvorak had two kills in five errorless tries, 43 assists, two aces, nine digs, and a block.
LEWIS 3, PENN STATE 0 — The MIVA-champion Flyers 21-2) hit .460 eliminated EIVA-champion Penn State (22-4) 25-23, 27-25, 25-20 for their 13th victory in a row.
Tyler Mitchem led with 14 kills in 20 errorless attacks to hit .700. He had an ace, five blocks, and a dig. Ryan Coenen had 12 kills, hit .370, and had two assists, three blocks, and five digs. Kyle Bugee had eight kills, two aces, seven digs, and three blocks, one solo. Lewis had nine blocks.
Kevin Kauling had two kills in six errorless attempts, 37 assists, six blocks, and 10 digs.
Penn State, which hit .277, got 13 kills from Cal Fisher, 10 from Brett Wildman, and nine from Michal Kowal. Fisher hit .323 and had an assist, two aces, and two digs. Penn State had just two blocks. Cole Bogner had three kills, 32 assists, two aces, a solo block, and and seven digs.
UCSB won the Big West conference. Hawaii is the at-large team from the Big West conference.
Good catch. We made the fix. Thanks.