There’s always next year.
The No. 9 UCSB men’s volleyball team needed to beat visiting No. 5 Hawaii and also needed Stanford to beat UC Irvine on Saturday to earn a bid into the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation tournament. Stanford ended up taking care of the Anteaters in five sets down in Irvine, but up at ol’ Rob Gym it didn’t pan out.
Twenty-four hours after sweeping the Warriors, the tables were turned and UCSB endured a season-ending 33-31, 30-28, 30-26 loss. It was an uphill battle the whole way after UCSB let game point, 29-27, slip away in the first set.
“Losing that first set was a crusher. We’ve had trouble coming back from that the whole year,” said second-year coach Rick McLaughlin. “I’ll tell ya’, Hawaii played the big points better.”
UCSB setter Vince Devany dishes out a set to fellow junior Scott Slaughter during the third set.
UCSB finishes with a 13-16 overall record and a 9-13 mark in the MPSF — five more wins than last season. Hawaii, meanwhile, improves to 18-9, 14-8 and will host its first round match in the tournament thanks to Pepperdine’s loss at UCSD.
“I just thought we came out with more fire tonight,” said Hawaii senior libero Ric Cervantes, a Santa Barbara high alum, who had a match-high 14 digs. “It was great to win back home in front of my family and friends, especially because this was the last regular season match of my career.”
The Warriors out-hit the Gauchos .365 to .258, getting 22 kills on 44 attempts from fiery German freshman Jonas Umlauft. Joshua “Sky” Walker put away 14 kills on the night. The Gauchos got 16 kills from Jeff Menzel and 14 from junior opposite hitter Todd Travis, who has been solid since getting in the mix for UCSB over the past few weeks. Menzel also had eight digs and a pair of aces, but hit just .231 and misfired on two offspeed shot attempts late in the critical first game.
Menzel and Dylan Davis notched an enormous stuff block to put UCSB up 19-17 in the opening set. Dos Pueblos alum Brennon Dyer came in a few points later for the Warriors and immediately put away a kill to tie things up at 22-22 and force a Gaucho timeout. Hawaii’s Steven Grgas picked up a solo block that put the visitors up 25-22, but UCSB responded with three straight points, capped by a roof by Sam Moisenco and Scott Slaughter which tied it up once again and forced a Warriors timeout.
The Gauchos won the next three points on a Slaughter kill, Travis ace and yet another Slaughter/Moisenco block. Moments later, a missed serve by Hawaii would put the Gauchos on the verge at 29-27, but Umlauft put down a right-side kill and Menzel tried to roll a soft shot over that instead went into the net, tying it up at 29-29.
Two straight hitting errors would eventually give the set to the Warriors.
Grgas had three consecutive solo blocks midway through the second game as the Gauchos looked deflated, falling behind 22-13. But to their credit, the hosts took it one point at a time and climbed all the way back and fought off three game points. Slaughter and Vince Devany teamed up for a block of Walker that cut the Hawaii lead to 29-28, but Umlauft finished the next point with a kill that gave Hawaii a 2-0 advantage.
While UCSB had just one more service error (13) than the Warriors and five ace to Hawaii’s four, McLaughlin said that the Warriors ultimately had the edge at the service line.
“You’ve gotta give credit to Hawaii. They served better and they passed better. We didn’t serve as tough as they did, and it put us out of our system,” he said.
UCSB’s final lead of the season was at 21-20 in the third set before Hawaii surged to the finish line. Moisenco and Jake Rosener are the only two seniors graduating for McLaughlin’s team, leaving plenty of room for optimism.
“We won five more matches in league than last year. If we do that next year, we’ll be looking at hosting (in the playoffs),” he said.
