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PROVO — The top-ranked BYU men’s volleyball team didn’t necessarily rest its NCAA Tournament berth on the result of Thursday night’s Mountain Pacific Sports Federation semifinal with UC Santa Barbara.
But don’t tell that to Ben Patch.
Patch tallied a season-high 32 kills on 50 attempts to help the No. 1 Cougars hold off the Gauchos 25-18, 25-22, 23-25, 24-26, 15-12 in the third five-set match of the season in the Smith Fieldhouse.
“It was just us; it doesn’t take coaches, it doesn’t take fans. It just takes each other,” said Patch, who finished three kills off his career high. “That’s the thing about this whole process: it’s about us and the story we’re creating. We trust each other and believe in each other, and that’s the game.”
Still, Patch gave all credit to his setter for the standout evening. Leo Durkin dished out a career-high 62 assists and 12 digs for BYU (25-3), which got 19 kills from Brenden Sander.
“He did an awesome job and put up amazing sets,” Patch said.
BYU jumped out to a 2-0 lead going into the break and appeared headed toward a meeting with No. 2 UCLA in Saturday’s tournament final. The bout will be the first match between the top tourney seeds since 2004.
But the Gauchos (20-10) had other plans, winning two-straight coming out of the break to force the decisive fifth set.
No team led by more than two during a back-and-forth fourth set, when Patch tallied 12 kills on a .422 hitting percentage. But the sophomore from Provo High also sent wide the set-winning point after BYU fell behind 24-25.
“The fans were on our side, and that’s the nice thing about playing in the Smith Fieldhouse,” Durkin said. “You have 5,000-plus people, and they support you and help you get through the match. They brought some great energy for us, and it was a great match.”
Santa Barbara's forced decider was the first fifth set in Provo since Jan. 16, when BYU held off No. 11 Stanford 3-2 in the Cougars’ first series of MPSF play.
“They served really, really well,” Patch said of UCSB as they forced the fifth set. “It was kind of difficult for us to receive the ball. One of our strengths is to run an offense from 10 feet off the net, and tonight we didn’t capitalize as well as I thought we could.”
But BYU jumped out to an early 4-3 advantage, and Jake Langlois powered through for one of his 12 kills to go up 5-3 before UCSB rallied with back-to-back points.
Durkin, who finished with 62 assists on 73 total kills, secured BYU’s second ace of the night at the perfect time for the Cougars. The sophomore setter from Las Vegas placed a serve just inside the back line to give BYU a 10-7 lead in the fifth set, and forced the Gauchos to take their final timeout.
“There was nothing different: I just went back and tried to get it high on the way up,” Durkin said. “I just put some pace on it, and luckily it dropped out of the atmosphere and grazed the paint.”
BYU went on a 4-2 run and took a 12-9 advantage on Patch’s kill to set up one final push. Sander set up match point at 14-11, then finished it off with the final stroke of the match to send BYU to the MPSF finals.
“They’ve been playing very good volleyball, some of the best in our conference the last couple of weeks,” BYU coach Shawn Olmstead said of UCSB. “They’ve beaten some very quality opponents, and we expect this as a staff. I believe the guys did, too, but I told them at the start of the match they had to be patient at the right times and get assertive when they needed to be.
“We were just way too patient. It felt like we were waiting too much for something to happen. That happened, and then we were assertive in the fifth set and took some big swings. It’s something to learn, an opportunity to grow.”
Who: No. 1 BYU vs. No. 2 UCLA
Where: Smith Fieldhouse, Provo, UT
When: Saturday, 7 p.m. MT
Broadcast: BYUtv
In the second set, Price Jarman scored off the block on two of BYU’s first three points, and the Cougars jumped out to a 9-4 advantage on Patch’s thunderous strike. The BYU middle blocker finished with seven kills and a game-high seven block assists to pace BYU’s 12.5 team-blocks.
But the Gauchos rallied to tie the set 18-18 on a kill by Henri Cherry — possibly a precursor to the rest of the match.
Santa Barbara began to find more space in the middle of the court, and used it to its advantage through much of the third and fourth set to equalize the match. The Gauchos’ middle hitters of Ryan Hardy and Cherry, along with setter Jonah Seif, finished with 35 total kills, including 17 in the third and fourth sets.
The Gauchos finished with five double-digit attackers, including Hardy (15), Cherry (13), Matt Marsh (15), Hayden Boehle (12) and Austin Kingi (12).
“We told them to adjust, but didn’t make the right adjustments,” Olmstead said. “They hit exactly where we thought they’d be hitting, even as the match unfolded. We wanted the guys to take away a few shots, and just didn’t. We’ve got to get better at that … make sure we adjust and get our hands in the right spots.
“We finally did in the end, got a few touches, and things worked our way.”
But Durkin moved over to fill the void in the middle, tallying his team-best 12 digs that was second only to Santa Barbara libero Parker Boehle, who had 16.
“I was just trying to read the game,” Durkin said. “Seif is a really good setter for UCSB; he runs a great offense, and the guys hit an amazing clip in our fifth set. I was just trying to be in a good place behind the block, and the guys just swung at me.”
Olmstead said he wasn’t necessarily the guy who needed to step up in that spot. But Durkin is that kind of player.
“I thought he made some big, gutsy decisions at the end — on some things that weren’t working, too,” Olmstead said. “We needed him at the end, and he came through.
“Leo’s the one to get down and make that decision, make a play, and he did a really good job.”
UCLA 3, LONG BEACH STATE 0 — At BYU, JT Hatch totaled 14 kills and nine digs to lead the second-seeded Bruins by the 49ers 26-24, 28-26, 25-19 in the first semifinal Thursday.
Jake Arnitz had nine kills and five digs for UCLA, which finished off the match with a .486 hitting percentage in the third set. Micah Ma’a distributed 19 assists, and Hagen Smith supplied 16 for the Bruins.
TJ DeFalco led Long Beach State with 11 kills and seven digs, and Josh Tania dished out 32 assists for the 49ers.
