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PROVO — Ben Patch’s struggles at the service line have been well-documented in his sophomore season with the BYU men’s volleyball team.
He's had 13 aces and 72 errors in the 22 regular-season matches played in 2016.
Naturally, then, it was the standout opposite hitter’s serve that helped push BYU to its first postseason win of the year.
Patch finished with a match-high 14 kills, two aces and four digs, and Jake Langlois finished with 13 kills and eight digs as the No. 1-ranked BYU men’s volleyball team swept No. 14 UC Irvine 25-21, 25-20, 25-23 in Saturday’s opening round of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation tournament at the Smith Fieldhouse.
“He went on a nice run, which we need Ben to do more,” BYU coach Shawn Olmstead said. “He’s putting in more time than probably anybody at serving, and that’s someone he’s got to battle. He’s going to get over it, and we’ve got all the confidence in him to stay the course and get over the serving thing in his mind a bit.”
Leo Durkin dished out 39 assists on 44 kills for the Cougars (24-3), who advance to host UC Santa Barbara in Thursday’s semifinal. UCLA and Long Beach State will face off in the other semifinal in Provo.
Patch gave BYU an 8-5 lead early in the decisive third set on back-to-back aces, his first of the match. The Cougars finished with 14 service errors to five aces, but capped the third set with three aces and only five errors to help them put away the Anteaters (10-20).
“Serving is a defensive move, and when you are confident as a team to go back to the line and still hit it well and accurate, it’s huge for momentum,” said Patch, who hit .370 with 14 kills on 27 attempts. “It happened in the third set, and that is what set us apart.”
The Anteaters rallied to tie the set 18-18 on Marty Ross’ block in the third. But BYU scored five of the final seven points of the match to close out the win.
“Our guys did a great job of holding them off. It’s good to get tested; it’s better to win, but it’s good to get tested,” Olmstead said. “We need that going forward, because we are going to play some really good volleyball teams.”
Price Jarman put up 2.5 of BYU’s five blocks to pace an outstanding Cougar front row, and Brenden Sander finished with nine kills and two of BYU’s five aces.
Early in the match, Jarman was the difference.
Jarman gave either side the first multi-point advantage of the first set with back-to-back blocks to put the Cougars up 15-12, and BYU went on a 9-4 run to earn set point on Langlois’ kill, 24-16.
“Our middles had no errors, our pin hitters were just unreal, and that last play out of the back row by Brenden, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him jump like that,” Olmstead said. “There was some really good stuff from each of our attackers.”
The Cougars spiked 13 kills with just one error to finish the first set hitting .571 to Irvine’s .292. Patch led the way with five kills, and Langlois added four kills for BYU.
Long Beach State 3, Pepperdine 0 (25-22, 25-22, 25-22)
UC Santa Barbara 3, Stanford 2 (25-20, 25-23, 23-25, 21-25, 15-12)
UCLA 3, Hawai’i 1 (25-16, 25-15, 22-25, 25-21)
Langlois scored four of his 13 kills in the second set to pace the Cougars to the 25-20 win and a 2-0 advantage at the break, despite dropping their hitting percentage to .462 in the second race to 25 points.
BYU advanced to face the winner of Stanford and UC Santa Barbara in Thursday’s MPSF semifinal in Provo. The Cougars are likely to host the later of two semifinals, based on broadcast accommodations.
Olmstead has stressed the Cougars are only guaranteed one more game as the postseason continues for top-ranked BYU, a popular pick to advance to the national title match at Penn State.
But one more game in front of a group BYU players call “family,” like the 3,535 in attendance Saturday night, can make all the difference.
“Our fans are amazing,” Patch said. “This is a family; we have 6,000 people we count as family, friends, brothers and sisters, and we love each one of them; we wish we could kiss them. It’s amazing to play here and be a part of something that is bigger than a team.”
