NCAA Men’s Volleyball Tournament : Trojans, Gauchos Easy Winners in Semifinals

FORT WAYNE, Ind. — To the surprise of virtually no one, USC and UC Santa Barbara advanced to the championship match of the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. volleyball tournament Friday night.

How predictable was the outcome of the semifinals?

Not more than 20 minutes after UCSB had steamrollered George Mason, 15-9, 15-9, 15-13, Coach Ken Preston spoke without prompting of meeting top-ranked USC in tonight’s final at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum.

About 90 minutes later, the Trojans had earned their fourth straight trip to the final with a 15-7, 15-7, 15-11 victory over Ball State.

So, for the 17th time in 19 years, a pair of teams from California will meet for the championship.

And for the 19th straight year, a California team will win it.

USC and Santa Barbara split two meetings in the regular season. UCSB (28-10) beat USC (33-4) two weeks ago at Santa Barbara after the Trojans had clinched the Western Intercollegiate Volleyball Assn. championship.

USC will be out to reverse a disturbing trend. The Trojans have lost in the final three straight years and four times since they last won in 1980.

“We want to go out and be very aggressive and win the thing,” said Coach Bob Yoder. “A team doesn’t lose a championship. Somebody goes out and wins it. We’ve witnessed that. We’ve been on the wrong end.

Neither USC nor UCSB needed to stay aggressive against their outmanned semifinal opponents.

Both did, however.

“I didn’t really feel inferior to them,” Ball State’s Brian Begor said of the Trojans, “but they kind of made us feel that way toward the end.

“I was ripping some pretty good shots, but the ball kept coming back up. That’s the best part of their game. They play great defense. You’ll make a great shot and they’ll pick it up.”

UCSB, too, played a strong defensive game against a George Mason team that upset second-ranked Penn State last week in the East Regional.

The Gauchos also exploited the Patriots’ weakness in the middle.

“I don’t think our middle blocked one ball in those first two games,” said George Mason senior Uvaldo Acosta. “And we weren’t playing defense around them, which didn’t help much, either.”

UCSB’s starting middle blockers, Lee Nelson and Jose Gandara, put down 53.1% of their kill attempts.

George Mason, which started three freshmen because of injuries, was more one-dimensional. One of the freshman, Kris Grunwald, was ineffective, Coach George Stalick said, so Acosta had to take a match-high 49 sets.

“When you’re always going to one person, you’re very predictable,” Stalick said. “Santa Barbara put two people on Uvaldo almost from the start. That, of course, makes him less effective.”

Even less effective was Ball State against USC.

With outside hitter Jen-Kai Liu leading the way, putting down 61.5%, USC converted 42.8% of its kill attempts.

Ball State converted 15.2%.

“They were about what I was afraid they might be,” Ball State Coach Don Shondell said of the Trojans. “They made very few errors. They’re just a very steady team, and that kind of pressure gets to you. We gave up a lot of points in long strings.”

Shondell said his team was frustrated by USC’s quickness.

“There were a lot of times we were caught with one guy sort of jumping at the ball, or, sometimes, no one at all,” he said.

Volleyball Notes

Among the crowd of 5,237 was actor Tom Selleck, whose stepson, Kevin Shepard, is a reserve middle blocker for USC. Shephard has played infrequently this season because of a back injury and is not suited up for the tournament. . . . Senior David Rottman led UC Santa Barbara with 19 kills and freshman Eric Fonoimoana, making only his second start, had 16, putting down 38.7% of his attempts. . . . USC leads the nation with 63 NCAA men’s team championships, but has been shut out since the volleyball team won in 1980. . . . Said George Mason Coach George Stalick: “People regard volleyball as a California sport, and until someone from another region wins, it’s always going to be regarded that way. We’d like to have a tournament where people don’t know beforehand who’s going to win.”