NCAA Men’s Volleyball : USC and UCLA Will Meet in the Final

In the 17 previous seasons that the NCAA has sanctioned men’s volleyball championships, the only team from the East that has ever won an NCAA title is San Diego State.

East of USC, that is.

Eleven have been won by UCLA, three by Pepperdine and two by USC.

Only twice has a team from outside California even made the final.

The West Coast dominance continued Friday night at Pauley Pavilion, but not before USC rallied to overcome Penn State, 15-12, 9-15, 5-15, 15-12, 15-9, in a three-hour marathon before a crowd of 3,257.

Top-ranked UCLA rolled over Ohio State, 15-7, 15-10, 15-11, in the other semifinal for its 26th straight win.

UCLA (37-3) hasn’t lost since Jan. 24 and is 6-0 against USC this season, will meet the Trojans (29-10) in the final tonight at 7:30.

“Any two teams that are matched up, you’re going to beat them a certain percentage of the time,” USC Coach Bob Yoder said Thursday of a possible matchup with UCLA. “I’d like to think we’ll beat them one in every seven times we play them.”

The percentages would also seem to favor a team from outside California breaking through to win the NCAA title, and Penn State, which upset USC to reach the final in 1982, came to Los Angeles with its best team.

The Nittany Lions have college volleyball’s most dominant offensive player in 6-foot 10-inch sophomore Chris Chase, who was successful on 54.1% of his kill attempts against USC, and perhaps the college game’s best setter in junior Javier Gaspar.

But after having seemingly taken control of their match against USC by overcoming an 8-5 deficit in the second game and then winning the third game easily, the second-ranked Nittany Lions (25-4) apparently forgot what had put them in that position.

USC went ahead, 6-5, in the fourth game and never trailed again, despite a staggering 10 service errors in the fifth game.

“USC did a good job of getting back to doing some basics well and we got away from doing some basics, especially in the fourth and fifth games,” Penn State Coach Tom Tait said. “It took us longer than it should have to adjust to some changes they made in their offense.”

Specifically, Tait said, the Nittany Lions didn’t control their block and their back row was out of position.

“When we got away from that,” Tait said, “it gave USC a chance to score some easy points. We certainly didn’t dig any balls because we weren’t in position to dig any.”

Yoder said that his team, perhaps conscious that a West Coast team just isn’t expected to lose to an East Coast team, was tentative and played at times as if it was afraid of losing.

“I thought we had a chance to jump on them early if we had come out with some intensity,” he said, “but we let them get into a groove.”

Chase, he said, was unstoppable.

“I just wanted to hurt somebody out there, and the best way to hurt them is to hit them with the ball,” Chase said. “I obviously stung them, but I didn’t hurt them too much.”

USC’s Tom Duke put down 53.5% of his kill attempts and teammate Dave Yoder, the coach’s brother, was successful on 30%, but USC as a team hit only .274 to Penn State’s .345.

But Penn State, even with Chase, couldn’t score when it needed to.

“We were a little tougher when it came down to it,” Yoder said. “Despite all of our service errors, we just weren’t going to give up points.”

And now USC meets UCLA.

Tait said this week that the NCAA tournament will never be thought of as anything more than a regional championship until a team outside California can win it.

He had his chances.

Notes

UCLA Coach Al Scates on tonight’s match with USC, which is 0-6 against the Bruins this season: “USC is a hot team. We are not taking them for granted. We’ve been in a similar situation where we hadn’t beaten the team we played in the final, and we’ve won (1975 against UC Santa Barbara).” . . . Torgeir Volstad, brother of UCLA’s Asbjorn Volstad, is covering the tournament for a Norwegian newspaper. The brothers are from Forde, Norway. After the match, he asked Scates about his brother’s poor passing. Scates laughed and said, “Volstad’s passing wasn’t that bad,” and added, “brothers are always too critical.” . . . Ohio State Coach Pete Hanson, on UCLA, which has only one starter shorter than 6 feet 4: “There were times when they went right over our block, which we expected somewhat because of their size.” . . . Ohio State (13-19) will play Penn State in the consolation match at 5:30 p.m.