Men’s Volleyball: Loyola halts UCI title run

STANFORD — MIVA over West Coast volleyball. There’s a new conference in town.

The UC Irvine Anteaters, who began the season with a three-set loss to Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Assn. regular-season champion Lewis, saw their season ended in similar fashion against MIVA tournament champion Loyola of Chicago in the semifinals of the NCAA Championship on Thursday at Stanford University’s Maples Pavilion.

The No. 3-seeded and No. 3-ranked Ramblers, the defending NCAA champions, rallied in the first set, then rumbled to a 25-22, 25-19, 25-17 triumph to end No. 1-ranked and No. 2-seeded UCI’s bid for a fifth national crown in nine seasons.

The Anteaters (28-5), who had won 10 matches in a row this season and eight straight in the NCAA Championship, hit .140, less than half as efficient as the Ramblers (27-2), who have won nine in a row, including eight sweeps.

Loyola, which was eliminated by UCI in the 2013 semifinals, hit .312, topped by a .400 clip in the clinching set. It posted a 10.5 team blocks, to UCI’s four, had six aces to the ‘Eaters’ four with two fewer service errors.

It marks the first time in the 46 seasons of NCAA men’s volleyball that no team from west of Illinois and/or the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation will play in the final. The only previous time that no California team advanced past the semifinals was 2003, when BYU, a member of the MPSF, lost to Lewis, which later vacated the title.

It was Loyola, a veritable upstart on the sport’s biggest stage, which showed more of the typical UCI staples of poise and confidence.

“We go into every match thinking we’re going to win every set, 25-0,” said 6-foot-10 Loyola middle blocker Nicholas Olson, who was joined up front by 6-10 middle Jeff Jendryk and fellow freshman Ricky Gevis, a 6-11 opposite. “If they score a few points, that’s fine. But we go in with the mentality that we are going to sweep them.”

The taller Ramblers, who have won 45 of their last 47 sets (and 70 of their last 76 dating back to late January), imposed their physicality at the net. And UCI, the nation’s No. 2 hitting team with a .356 percentage that trailed only Loyola’s .358 coming in, appeared to alter its aggression. The seemingly spooked ‘Eaters chose instead to try to arch shots over, around or off the arms of Loyola’s tree-top blockers.

“I think some of that shot selection was based on … I hate to say it was nerves, but I wonder,” UCI Coach David Kniffin said. “I’m curious about that. Size shouldn’t intimidate us, because we see teams that big on a regular basis. Everything on [Loyola’s] side of the net was well put together, well-coached and well-executed. But there were some curious choices by us.”

The Ramblers, for whom Newport Harbor High product and senior outside hitter Cody Caldwell hit a match-best .467 with seven kills and three block assists, were less conflicted.

“We go with the mentality that we are going to get every block,” said Olson, who had a match-best seven block assists. “We’re going to be big, be ugly and try to shut teams down.”

Added Gevis, who along with NCAA Player of the Year and junior outside hitter Thomas Jaeschke led the winners with nine kills: “We’re pretty big people and we’re intimidating. If we press over [the net], it’s hard to get past us.”

UCI senior All-American opposite Zack La Cavera, the MPSF Player of the Year who had 51 combined kills in his previous two matches, had 10 kills and seven errors on 30 swings (a .100 percentage). Sophomore All-American outside hitter Tamir Hershko had a match-best 12 kills. But he hit just .172.

Senior outside hitter Travis Woloson had six kills and six errors on 18 swings for a hitting percentage of .000. The ‘Eaters hit .031 as a team in the second set.

Hershko matched senior All-American libero Michael Brinkley with eight digs, while La Cavera added six.

“Irvine is a great team and we’re a great team as well,” Loyola Coach Shane Davis said. “You had two of the most high-octane offenses going back and forth in this match. I was a little surprised with the 3-0 victory, especially taking control pretty early in that third set.”

UCI jumped to leads of 3-0 and 10-6 in the opening set, but Loyola earned its first tie at 11-11, took its first lead at 14-13 and did not trail again until early in the second set.

UCI’s last lead was 4-3 in the second set, and the Ramblers rumbled to a 20-10 third-set lead before closing out the first sweep of UCI since the aforementioned season opener.

“I thought we picked a less-than-ideal night to bring anything less than our best,” Kniffin said. “I’m really proud of the season we put together. My minimum expectation with this team was to make the final four, and my hopes and aspirations for this team were to take home another [championship] trophy. So by my minimum standard, we did achieve our objective. Based on what I know we’re capable of, we did not.”

La Cavera was unforgiving in assessing his performance, as well as that of his team.

“We got exposed really badly out there,” said La Cavera, who like Brinkley and Woloson was part of NCAA title teams in 2012 and 2013. “I was tentative tonight. I blame myself. I know I’m a leader on this team, the guys were [counting on me], and I failed them tonight.

“It’s a terrible feeling knowing how hard we worked this whole season, and then to have it end up like that, especially my senior year,” La Cavera said. “But I hope this is a good learning point for the guys who have a shot at it next year, because we are going to be really good next year.”