BYU Finishes Finest Season With Flourish

Brigham Young won its first NCAA men’s volleyball championship, and avenged its only loss of the season, by defeating Long Beach State, 15-9, 15-7, 15-10, on Saturday before 8,026 at Pauley Pavilion.

BYU (30-1), playing in its first NCAA final, became only the second school outside of California to win the championship. Penn State won in 1994.

Saturday’s victory was a fitting conclusion for BYU, which was ranked No. 1 for most of the season despite losing to Long Beach in March.

“It was never easy, for sure,” BYU middle blocker Ryan Millar said of the championship match. “I told the guys in the locker room this was one of the best games we played all year.

“It’s a real compliment to the team that we saved the best for last.”

Ossie Antonetti, the tournament’s most valuable player, had a match-high 22 kills for BYU, but it was the Cougar defense that was the key against Long Beach (22-4). BYU held the 49ers to .156 hitting and got 23 1/2 blocks, led by Millar’s 13, compared to 11 1/2 by the 49ers.

“We talked a lot about the great defense Long Beach played,” BYU Coach Carl McGown said. “So we wanted to show them our good defense and we did.”

Said Long Beach Coach Ray Ratelle, whose team was in its first national final since winning its only title in 1991: “They did a good job blocking tonight.”

But Ratelle also acknowledged the other key to the match--the 49ers’ inconsistent offense.

“All night long when we’d try to pass the ball, the pass was the wrong type of ball for that play,” Ratelle said. “Then we’d make the perfect pass but there was no play called for that pass.”

Long Beach committed 43 hitting errors. In the second game, BYU scored 10 points on errant 49er hits.

“We got one long run the entire match,” Long Beach setter Chris Seiffert said. “We weren’t gelling. We didn’t get anything going consistently.”

Long Beach’s sophomore outside hitter Dave McKienzie, who had an NCAA-record 58 kills in the five-game victory over BYU in March, had only 19 on Saturday, committing 13 errors and hitting only .115. McKienzie was pulled from the match by Ratelle during the second game. He returned to start the third.

“I wanted him to get a second wind,” Ratelle said. “When things get going and get going bad, it’s hard, especially for a sophomore, to try and pull himself out.”

McGown said his team had a definite game plan against McKienzie, but when asked what that was, he said, “I can’t say. He’s only a sophomore.”

McKienzie helped the 49ers take a 7-0 lead to start the third game. But the Cougars tied the score, 7-7, before Long Beach scored the next three points.

BYU fought back again and, on the Cougars’ third serve for the match, Antonetti put away the winner.

“We were playing good defense from . . . the opening serve,” McGown said. “We knew we had a chance in game three because we knew we’d play good defense.”

In that game, BYU had nine blocks, four by Millar, a Lancaster native.

“The bottom line is, BYU kicked our butt,” Ratelle said.

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Net Returns

BYU won its first NCAA men’s volleyball title on Saturday. A look at the NCAA champions:

School (last title): Championships

UCLA (1998): 17

Pepperdine (1992): 4

USC (1990): 4

Brigham Young (1999): 1

Stanford (1997): 1

Penn State (1994): 1

Long Beach State (1991): 1

San Diego State (1973): 1