Long Beach State University Athletics
Pepperdine Rallies To Upset Win Over BYU
4/26/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Volleyball
April 26, 2008
Long Beach, Calif. - Down two games to none, Pepperdine (16-10) stormed back to even the match and take a 28-30, 28-30, 32-30, 30-27, 15-8 win over BYU (25-5) in the MPSF Championship game. MVP Jonathan Winder had 63 assists and 15 digs to help the No. 5 seed Waves grab their third upset win to advance to the NCAA Final Four as the MPSF Tournament champions.
Distributing the ball evenly, Winder set Paul Carroll for 27 kills and J.D. Schleppenbach for 23, as Pepperdine ended up hitting over .300 in all three games they won to improve to .296 over the match. "It's always great to win, and I think in our sport, it's great to win in five," said Marv Dunphy. "I told the team that the only thing we didn't do was finish in games one and two. You never really know if you can win, but we know we're in the ballpark as an NCAA volleyball team. You play the best you can, and either you're good enough or you aren't."
For BYU, 20 kills apiece from Ivan Perez and Jonathan Cherette were wasted as the Cougars could not find a way to recapture their earlier success after letting a match point slip away in game three. "We didn't have the match in the first two games that we wanted, but we found ways to win," said Shawn Patchell. "We had a couple of swings to win the MPSF, but Pepperdine just made impressive plays to force it to four, and then force it to five."
Pepperdine held the edge through most of game one, but mistakes would come back to haunt the Waves in the end. Starting with a lot of emotion, Pepperdine scored the first three points of the match, and would hold on to that cushion through the first part of the match, eventually extending their lead to five at 13-8. BYU began to work their way back cutting the lead to one at 20-19 after a Jonathan Charette kill. Corey Riecks answered with a kill for Pepperdine out of a Waves timeout, and they moved out to a 23-19 lead. BYU came back to tie the game after second wide attack from Pepperdine, and a Ivan Perez ace put BYU in the lead for the first time at 28-27. After one more sideout, kills from Andrew Stewart and Yamil Perez ended the game in BYU's favor 30-28.
Pepperdine again took the early lead in game three, moving ahead by six 9-3 after a Mark Hulse block. BYU back to tie at 12-12 after triple block of Carroll, who had just five kills to go with five errors as BYU took the lead in game two 14-13. Pepperdine came back on Carroll's back row work, scoring four straight points to regain the lead at 19-16. That momentum carried for the Waves until late in the game again, yet BYU again had an answer, taking the lead at 25-24 on a Charette kill. With the service advantage, BYU held on to take the second game as well, again winning 30-28.
A much closer start to game three led to a competitive battle throughout. Pepperdine again was the team to take a first lead of more than a point, taking three straight points for a 15-12 lead. Coming back once again, BYU took the momentum from a kill off of the head of Pepperdine star Carroll to tie the game at 18-18. Regaining the service advantage at 23-22 on a Perez kill, BYU moved out on top, but two service aces from J.D. Schleppenbach put Pepperdine back in the lead at 25-24. An attack error by Carroll, his eighth of the match put BYU ahead 29-28, but a kill from Schleppenbach set Pepperdine up with a game point at 30-29, and ahead 31-30, a solo block by Tyler Jaynes extended the match with a 32-30 Pepperdine win.
Taking a small edge early, Pepperdine held a two-point cushion until taking a 16-11 lead, running off four unanswered to force a BYU timeout. The Cougars would cut the lead to 18-17, but a sideout and two aces from Hulse put the Waves back up by four. An error from Russell Holmes and a third ace by Hulse gave the Waves a six-point lead at 23-17, which would hold as Pepperdine evened the match at two games apiece at 30-27
Similar to the first game, Pepperdine opened the final game with more effort and grabbed the momentum, scoring the first four points of the fifth game. Ahead 7-3, Pepperdine scored four of the next five points to move ahead 11-4 and cruised to a game five win 15-
With the win, Pepperdine advances to the NCAA Tournament, beginning on May 1 in the Bren Events Center at UC Irvine. Also advancing to the tournament are Penn State, Ohio State and on at-large team, which will be announced at 10:30 Sunday on ESPNEWS.
