Men's volleyball

Seiffert, Gardner lead comeback

By Ryan Hochgesang
Assistant Sports Editor

Last weekend against No. 7 Long Beach State, the USC men's volleyball team could seemingly do nothing right with its offense.
But last night in the North Gym, a rejuvenated Trojan offense propelled USC to an emotional upset of No. 2 Brigham Young, 10-15, 15-13, 12-15, 15-11, 15-10.
USC hit .325 for the match, including .475 with 37 kills in the pivotal fourth game.
With the victory, the Trojans (3-3 in NCAA matches, 2-1 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) move into a tie for third place in the MPSF Pacific division, while BYU (1-1, 3-1) drops into a tie for fifth in the Mountain division.
"I've said all along that number 15 can beat number one, number 14 can beat number two --it does not matter because these teams are so evenly matched," USC Coach Pat Powers said. "BYU is a great team--they won the Santa Barbara Tournament--but our guys were really gunning for them tonight.
"There's really not a clear-cut (number one) team right now, so I really think it will come down to who improves the most from now to May 3."
The improved offense was led by sophomore hitter Gabe Gardner, who tied a career high with 34 kills while hitting .309.
"Gabe really turned it up in the fourth and fifth games," Powers said. "He was virtually unstoppable near the end."
Chris Guigliano showed no lingering symptoms of the flu that had been bothering him. He added 25 kills and hit .356.
Setter Donald Suxho ran the offense smoothly with 85 assists and also made a match-high 16 digs.
Eric Seiffert continued his strong play in the middle with 20 kills compared to only two hitting errors for a .563 hitting percentage.
The offense showed incredible improvement from the previous match.
"Losing can be good--it's what drives you in practice," Powers said. "You're going to lose matches, but it's the way the team reacts to losing that will determine your success."
USC certainly responded to the loss on Saturday against BYU.
"I think it was a matter of us just being ready. The Long Beach loss gave us a little extra incentive," Gardner said.
USC's offense did start the night a little slow. The Trojans fell behind 4-10 in the first game and were not able to recover. They hit only .171 in the game, compared to BYU's .500 hitting percentage.
But after gaining a side out on the first serve of Game 2, the Trojans ran off five straight points on Seiffert's serves without the Cougars getting a side out.
The Cougars recovered to tie the score, 10-10, before USC responded to win the game on a Gardner ace.
BYU's offense heated in the third game, hitting .442 to take a seemingly solid 2-1 lead in games.
But USC pulled together to take the tightly contested fourth game, putting it away on a Guigliano kill.
The fifth game was also tight throughout. USC slowly surged ahead, and the celebration began when Suxho blocked a Richard Lambourne hit to clinch the upset.
Sophomore Ryan Millar, last year's MPSF Freshman of the Year, led the Cougars with 30 kills and hit .420.
Sophomore Ingo Lindemann added 28 kills, a .412 hitting percentage and 12 digs to the Cougar attack.
The Trojans host two MPSF matches this weekend. They play No. 1 Stanford Friday at 7 p.m. in the North Gym and No. 11 Pacific Saturday at 7 p.m. in the Lyon Center.