UC Irvine heads to the NCAA men’s volleyball final again

This place isn’t unexpected for the UC Irvine men’s volleyball team.

It is in the NCAA final again, for the fourth time.

And the second-seeded Anteaters will get the chance to defend their national title after beating third-seeded Loyola of Chicago, 26-24, 25-18, 29-27, Thursday night at Pauley Pavilion in the national championship semifinals.

The Anteaters (24-7) will meet top-seeded Brigham Young at 6 p.m. Saturday for the championship. The Cougars (26-4) swept fourth-seeded Penn State (23-8), 25-21, 25-16, 25-22.

David Kniffin, in his first year as Anteaters head coach, said his team has plotted this path ever since it beat USC to win its third national title last year.

Loyola of Chicago (22-10) ended its first trip to the volleyball championships by saving three match points before Anteaters junior Connor Hughes finished off the match with a booming kill. The Ramblers will host the national championships next year.

“When I took this job last June,” Kniffin said, “this has always been the goal, always been the objective. If we come across as very focused, very driven, we’ve been working for this since the last ball hit last year.”

Hughes said Thursday’s match turned in the Anteaters’ favor when his team settled down. “We didn’t know too much about them. When we began to play point to point, when we began managing the game, it’s hard to beat us.”

UC Irvine played from behind in each of the first two sets. In fact, in the first set, the Anteaters took their first lead, 25-24, on a kill from Scott Kevorken, which was followed by a similar shot, the set winner, by Zack La Cavera. In the second set, Loyola led, 10-8, and the set was still tied at 14-14.

But the Anteaters won seven of the last 10 points of the set and jumped ahead, 10-5, early in the final set.

Still, Loyola wouldn’t go away easily. With Irvine leading, 24-21, the Ramblers saved three match points to get even at 24 and a fourth after the Anteaters went up, 25-24, on a kill from Collin Mehring.

“Every team here is good,” Mehring said about Loyola’s last stand. “They started playing a notch higher than the rest of the match and put pressure on us. But we just played our game.”

Hughes said he doesn’t think the Anteaters feel the pressure of defending a national title. “I think just having the experience of being in the final four and knowing what we have to do to get the job done has really helped alleviate that pressure.”

diane.pucin@latimes.com

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