Anteaters lay claim to No. 1 ranking

IRVINE ? The No. 2-ranked UC Irvine men’s volleyball team completed a two-match sweep of No. 1 BYU Saturday night, and will surely move into the top national ranking for only the second time in school history.

But while Anteaters Coach John Speraw was appreciative of his team’s second straight come-from-behind, five-game triumph over its Mountain Pacific Sports Federation rival ? extending UCI’s unprecedented winning streak to 12 matches ? he didn’t exactly sound overly impressed.

“We were able to put together a couple of great fighting performances,” Speraw said after a 31-29, 26-30, 26-30, 30-24, 15-10 victory before an overflow crowd of 800 at Crawford Court.

“But I don’t think we were particularly smooth in parts of either match. I look at the box scores the last two nights and I say, ‘Wow! I’m not sure exactly how that happened.’ We just found ways to win.”

Matt Webber, a 6-foot-5 junior outside hitter, led the Anteaters (19-3, 12-2 in the MPSF) with 20 kills and had half of UCI’s six ace serves.

Junior setter Brian Thornton had 57 assists and added six digs and three total blocks.

Junior Jayson Jablonsky (17 kills), sophomore Matt Harrell (14 kills and a .650 hitting percentage), senior Paul Spittle (nine kills), junior David Smith (a team-leading 4.5 total blocks), and freshman libero Brent Asuka (a team-high 10 digs), all contributed heavily to arguably the greatest victory in the program’s history.

Speraw, who guided UCI to the top national ranking briefly in 2003, said singling out any individual performance wouldn’t be appropriate.

Speraw did place credence on his team’s quality of digs. But he reserved his biggest praise for his players’ collective determination, when it appeared the fatigue of four matches in six days had sapped them early in the match.

“In Game 2, I thought, ‘Wow, we may be gassed from the night before,’ ” Speraw said. “We were struggling a little bit.

“But we took a break and I addressed it. I told our guys, we have two or three more games, then they had the rest of the weekend off. I asked them to just finish this, suck it up and leave it all on the floor. And they did.”

Webber said his coach’s concerns about stamina were not unfounded.

“I was struggling after Game 1,” Webber said. “It’s tough playing four matches in a week [UCI defeated Loyola of Chicago on Monday and Penn State on Tuesday].

“But I think we all found something within ourselves and used the emotion of one another as momentum. I thought we did a really good job of using our enthusiasm to help our individual performance.”

Webber also said an energetic crowd, smaller than Friday’s 2,817 in the Bren Events Center, but possibly more inspirational in the closer confines of Crawford Court, helped lift the ‘Eaters.

“I think there was as much energy tonight as last night,” he said. “The fans brought a lot of enthusiasm, which was great.”

BYU (14-4, 12-4) also brought its typical brand of athletic prowess, Speraw said.

“They do some very aggressive things offensively, and they are incredibly physical,” Speraw said of the Cougars. “So we had to find other ways to do it, with our serve, our defense in the back row, and just turning all the points that we could.”

The Cougars posted the advantage in team blocks (18-15), aces (8-6), hitting percentage (.270 to .254) and fewer reception errors (6-8).

But BYU had 25 service errors to UCI’s 18 and the Anteaters enjoyed a 35-32 advantage in digs.

Unlike Friday, when UCI overcame a 10-6 deficit in the fifth game, the Anteaters controlled Saturday’s deciding game early.

Four kills by Jablonsky, as well as three kills and a stuff block by Webber, helped UCI build am 11-6 lead.

After Smith’s kill put the hosts up, 14-7, BYU closed to within 15-10, before Rodrigo Gomes served long to end the match.