UCI owns Buckeyes

PROVO, Utah — The UC Irvine men’s volleyball team came to the NCAA Championship wanting two things: the program’s second national title and a rematch with USC.

The latter is in place with the second pending, after the top-seeded Anteaters dispatched No. 4-seeded Ohio State, 30-25, 30-25, 30-26, in a semifinal Thursday at BYU’s Smith Fieldhouse.

Freshman opposite Carson Clark led three Anteaters with double-figure kills with 12, as UCI (26-5), hit .306 as a team, 59 points better than the Buckeyes (17-11).

Senior outside hitter Taylor Wilson had 11 kills, while sophomore outside hitter Jordan DuFault added 10 to help the Anteaters earn their fourth meeting this season with USC.

No. 3-seeded USC (21-10), which upset No. 2-seeded Penn State, 27-30, 30-26, 30-26, 30-24, in the first semifinal, handed UCI a three-game loss in the semifinals of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Tournament April 30 at UCI.

It was USC’s first win in its last 11 meetings with the Anteaters.

UCI defeated USC in their two regular-season meetings: a five-game triumph at USC Feb. 18 and a four-game victory at home on April 8.

Ohio State led early in both of the first two games, but UCI prevailed, then held off a late rally in Game 3 to close out the sweep, its 14th of the season. UCI’s last five wins have all come in three games.

“It wasn’t the prettiest match for us,” UCI Coach John Speraw said. “We didn’t play our best volleyball of the season, but that first match is always tough when you get to a Final Four.

“We hit .306 and a lot of those errors came on bics (back-row attacks). We’ll just need to groove that in a little bit.

“We didn’t block the ball very well tonight [just four team blocks, one fewer than Ohio State]. We’re going to have to block the ball a lot better to win the national championship.”

Clark said he is happy to have the opportunity to avenge the recent loss to USC in the title match, Saturday at 4 p.m.

“We lost to SC and that sucked,” Clark said. “But we’ve been training pretty hard to get back into this, and to get the at-large big was huge. We definitely have a chip on our shoulder.”

Clark said UCI will be in for a battle Saturday.

“I expect a grinding match,” Clark said. “That’s what we’re all about; that’s what we do at UC Irvine, and I could not be happier with the opponent that we have.”

Ohio State committed 10 of its 19 service errors, including a float serve that sailed long on game point, in the first game.

UCI had eight service errors in the opening game, but four of those were into the net and one was a mishit waffle that had nothing to do with altitude.

Clark had seven kills and hit .750 in the opening set, in which DuFault had three kills and hit .600 to help the ’Eaters hit .333 as a team.