NCAA CHAMPIONS! Buckeyes defeat UC Santa Barbara, 3-2 – Ohio State Buckeyes
5/8/2011 12:00:00 AM | Men's Volleyball
Columbus, Ohio – The No. 3 seed Ohio State (26-6) men’s volleyball team defeated No. 4 seed UC Santa Barbara (18-15), in five sets (20-25, 25-20, 25-19, 22-25, 15-9) to win the NCAA championship Saturday night in Rec Hall on the campus of Penn State University. Buckeye Shawn Sangrey recorded career-highs of 32.4 points and 30 kills (.389) and added five assist blocks. John Klanac had 18.5 points with 15 kills (.189), one ace serve and five assist blocks for the Buckeyes. UC Santa Barbara’s Cullen Irons posted a team-high 17 points with 16 kills (.263) and two assist blocks. Jeff Menzel added 16.5 points for the Gauchos with 12 kills (.025), one ace serve and seven assist blocks.
Ohio State’s Steven Kehoe was named the Most Outstanding Player of the tournament. Joining him on the All-Tournament team were Klanac and Sangrey. Penn State’s Joe Sunder, UCSB’s Irons and USC’s Murphy Troy and Tri Bourne completed the team.
Set one saw 13 ties and two lead changes. UCSB took a 1-0 lead off an OSU error. A Kevin Heine kill tied the set at one. The squads exchanged points to reach 12-all. An OSU error and Gaucho blocks from Scott Slaughter and Menzel and Dylan Davis and Menzel gave UCSB a 15-12 lead. A 5-2 Buckeye run tied the set at 17. Three kills from Jason Tobkin, one from Klanac and a Gaucho error offset an OSU error and a Menzel kill. Kills from Davis and Slaughter gave UCSB a 19-17 lead. A Klanac kill and a Buckeye error made it 20-18. Kills from Menzel and Klanac moved the score to 21-19. A Grayson Overman-Tobkin block cut the lead to one at 21-20. A Trey Valbuena kill and an OSU error made it 23-20. UC Santa Barbara reached set point at 24-20 with a kill from Slaughter. The Gauchos won the set, 25-20, with a Menzel kill to take a 1-0 lead in the match. Ohio State out hit the Gauchos, .367 to .318 in the set.
A Davis-Menzel block opened set two for the Gauchos. OSU responded with the next three points off a Heine-Sangrey block, a Gaucho error and a Klanac-Overman block. UC Santa Barbara trailed, 9-7, when a kill from Davis and an OSU error tied the set at nine. Tied at 10, a kill from Irons and blocks by Slaughter and Valbuena and Slaughter and Irons gave the Gauchos a 13-10 lead. OSU trailed, 16-13, when a Gaucho error, a Klanac-Heine-Sangrey block and a Sangrey kill tied the set at 16. Tied at 19, a Sangrey kill and an ace serve from Klanac gave the Buckeyes a 21-19 lead. A Slaughter kill cut the lead to one at 21-20. OSU kills from Sangrey and Heine made the lead three at 23-20. Ohio State reached set point at 24-20 with a Kehoe-Heine-Tobkin block. The Buckeyes, with a Heine-Tobkin block, won the set, 25-20, to tie the match at one set each. Ohio State hit .250 for the set to .100 for the Gauchos.
Tied at one in the third set, two OSU errors and an ace serve from Menzel gave UC Santa Barbara a 4-1 lead. OSU tied the set at four with kills from Klanac, Sangrey and Overman. A second Overman kill gave OSU a 5-4 lead. A Valbuena kill tied the set at five. The Buckeyes took a 7-5 lead with kills from Sangrey and Overman. Leading, 11-9, a Tobkin kill and a Gaucho error gave OSU a 13-9 lead. At 15-11, kills from Overman and Klanac gave the Buckeyes a six-point lead at 17-11. Leading, 19-13, an Overman ace serve took the lead to seven at 20-13 but an OSU error made it 20-14. Kills from Sangrey and Menzel moved the score to 21-15. Two kills from Irons made it 21-17, OSU. A Sangrey kill and a Gaucho error made it 23-17. Errors by both teams moved the score to 24-17 and set point for Ohio State. A Valbuena kill stopped the set point at 24-19. Ohio State won the set, 25-19, with an Overman kill to take a 2-1 lead in the match. The Buckeyes hit .364 for the set to .208 for UC Santa Barbara.
Two Buckeye errors opened set four for a 2-0 UC Santa Barbara lead. OSU trailed by as many as five points (13-8). Kills from Klanac and Sangrey and a Gaucho error cut the margin to two at 13-11. At 17-15, OSU tied the set at 17 with kills from Sangrey and Overman. The Gauchos responded with a kill by Irons, an OSU error and a Vince Devany-Slaughter block to take a 20-17 lead. Kills from Klanac and Irons made it 21-18. The score went to 22-19 with kills from Sangrey and Menzel. A Todd Travis ace serve and a Tobkin kill made it 23-20. OSU cut the margin to two at 23-21 with a Sangrey kill. The Gauchos reached set point at 24-21 with a Devany-Davis block. Sangrey, with a kill, stopped the set point at 24-22. UC Santa Barbara won the set, 25-22, with a kill from Menzel. For the set, the Gauchos hit .240 to .194 for Ohio State.
Ohio State opened the fifth set with a Sangrey kill. A kill from Irons tied the set at one. A Sangrey kill and an OSU error made it two-all. Kills from Overman and Menzel tied the score at three. Errors by both squads made it four-all. The score moved to five-all with kills from Heine and Menzel. A Sangrey kill and an OSU error tied the score at six. A kill by Klanac and a Klanac-Overman block gave Ohio State an 8-6 lead. A Buckeye error cut the lead to one at 8-7. An Overman kill made it 9-7. Menzel, with a kill, made it 9-8. The score moved to 10-9 with a kill from Klanac and a Buckeye error. A Sangrey kill and a Gaucho error took the Ohio State lead to three at 12-9. After a UCSB time out, a Sangrey kill made it 13-9 forcing another UCSB time out. Ohio State reached match point at 14-9 with a kill from Sangrey. The Buckeyes, with a Kehoe-Heine-Tobkin block, won the set, 15-9, to win the match, 3-2, to take home the national championship.
For the match, Ohio State hit .329 to .198 for UC Santa Barbara. The Buckeyes had a 74-45 advantage in kills and a 70-42 margin in assists. Kehoe recorded a season-high 65 assists for the Buckeyes while Devany had 41 for the Gauchos. OSU recorded three ace serves to two for UC Santa Barbara. The Buckeyes gave up 26 service errors in the match to six for the Gauchos. Defensively, Ohio State had a 40-38 edge in digs with OSU’s Mik Berzins and UCSB’s Menzel and Andy McGuire sharing match-high honors with 10 digs each. At the net, the Buckeyes had a season-high 16.5 points in the match to 14 for UC Santa Barbara. OSU’s Heine, with 10 total blocks (one solo and nine assists), tied his career high for the third time. Menzel and Slaughter shared team-high honors for the Gauchos with seven assist blocks each.
The NCAA championship is the first for men’s volleyball in three tries. OSU was runner-up in 1977 losing 3-1 to Southern California at UCLA and in 2000 losing 3-0 to UCLA at IPFW.
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