USC
Pacific
USC Men's Volleyball Rallies To Win At Pacific
April 09, 2010 | Men's Volleyball
April 9, 2010
Behind Murphy Troy's career-high 34 kills, the No. 6-ranked USC men's volleyball team clinched a berth into the 8-team Mountain Pacific Sports Federation tournament, but it wasn't easy as the Trojans had to fight back from a 2-set deficit against the league's last-place team to post a 24-30, 24-30, 30-25, 30-20, 15-12 victory at Pacific in an MPSF match on Friday (April 9).
USC improved to 14-9 overall and 11-8 in the MPSF with 3 regular-season league matches still to play. Pacific fell to 8-19 overall and remained winless in the MPSF at 0-19.
Troy hit .491 in the match and he added 12 digs. He was among 6 Trojans to post a statistical career high. Teammate Tony Ciarelli had 14 kills, a career-best 9 blocks and 7 digs. Hunter Current hit a match-high .529 with 12 kills and had a career-best 10 blocks. Maddison McKibbin had a personal-high 14 digs and Tyler Stevens came off the bench to get a career-best 7 digs. Riley McKibbin added 10 digs and 65 assists, while Steven Shandrick had 8 blocks off the bench.
For Pacific, Florian Gornik had 22 kills, Taylor Hughes had 18 kills and 8 digs, Sean Daley had 9 kills and 10 blocks, Nikola Vukicevic had 9 kills, Jason Borchin had 7 kills, 11 digs and 4 blocks, Patrick Tunnell had 5 aces, 8 digs, 5 blocks and 58 aces and Mark Bauhs had 7 digs.
USC hit .306 in the match and had 51 digs and 18.5 blocks. Pacific hit just .227, but served 7 aces and had 17.5 blocks.
Pacific went on a 6-0 run in the first set to go ahead 20-19 and then steadily pulled away while hitting .400 to USC's .226. The Tigers used a 5-0 run in the second set to build a 24-18 edge and USC couldn't catch up while hitting just .175 to Pacific's .333. To open the third set, USC inserted Shandrick at middle blocker (for Austin Zahn) and Stevens at outside hitter (for Sean Dennis, who started the match for normal starter Tri Bourne) into the lineup and the Trojans eventually caught fire late in the set to go up 22-19 for a lead that held up while hitting .406 to Pacific's .162. After scoring 4 of the first 5 points in the fourth set, USC was in control throughout while hitting .444 to the Tigers' .116. In the fifth set, the Trojans forged a 10-7 lead, but Pacific kept it close the rest of the way before a pair of consecutive kills by Troy closed out the match as USC hit .353 to the Tigers' .118.
USC next plays at No. 1 Stanford on Saturday (April 10).
