USC
Hawai'i
No. 1 USC Men's Volleyball Sweeps Hawaii
April 10, 2011 | Men's Volleyball
April 10, 2011
Tony Ciarelli had a match-best 17 kills to help the No. 1-ranked USC men's volleyball team avenge a 5-set loss to Hawaii the previous night by posting a 25-20, 28-26, 25-22 sweep over the No. 8 Warriors in a Mountain Pacific Sports Federation match on Saturday (April 9) in front of 5,591 fans in Honolulu.
USC improved to 19-2 overall and 18-2 in the MPSF. The Trojans, who have already clinched the MPSF regular season title and the top seed in the upcoming MPSF tournament, now conclude the regular season with 7 p.m. MPSF home matches against No. 7 UCLA on Thursday (April 14) and No. 6 UC Santa Barbara on Saturday (April 16).
Hawaii fell to 15-12 overall and 13-9 in the MPSF.
Saturday's outcome was quite different for the Trojans from Friday's contest, in which Hawaii snapped USC's 12-match overall winning streak and its 11-match MPSF winning streak.
USC outhit Hawaii, .321 to .256, and had more digs (40-28), aces (6-4) and blocks (8.0-7.0).
Ciarelli added 8 digs and 4 blocks for the Trojans. Teammate Murphy Troy had 9 kills and a match-leading 10 digs, Tri Bourne had 8 kills and 5 digs, Steven Shandrick hit .727 with 8 kills and a match-high 5 blocks, Austin Zahn had 7 kills while hitting .455, Riley McKibbin had 7 digs and Henry Cassiday had 6 digs.
For Hawaii, Jonas Umlauft had 15 kills, Joshua Walker had 8 kills and 5 digs and Steven Hunt had 8 digs.
In the first set, USC scored back-to-back points to open an 8-6 lead, then ran off 4 straight points to go up 14-9 and was never threatened as Hawaii hit just .167. The teams each had 4 point leads early in the second set until the score got knotted at 16-16, then the set see-sawed until a Bourne kill followed by a Zahn ace ended it. USC slowly pulled away from a 10-10 score in the third set, going up 24-19 and then holding off a late Warrior charge while hitting .355.
