WESTWOOD, Calif. — No. 8 BYU men’s volleyball fell to the No. 1 team in the nation, the UCLA Bruins, 3-1 (25-14, 17-25, 25-17, 25-18) Thursday night on Wooden Court at the Pauley Pavilion.
BYU held UCLA to its second-fewest point total in a set this season in the second set, but couldn’t contain the Bruins in the other sets.
Connor Oldani led the Cougars with 14 kills in the match, hitting .393 He also stuffed the stat sheet with three aces, three blocks, three digs and two assists.
Tyler Herget had 33 assists. Jackson Fife had a match-high eight digs.
UCLA hit .484 in the match. BYU hit .256.
Set One
The Cougars started out the match with an Oldani kill and the teams traded points early.
BYU went up 6-5 on a Trevor Herget kill, but then UCLA rattled off five straight points to go up 10-6 and force a BYU timeout.
UCLA would hold at least a four-point lead and build to as much as an 11-point lead before eventually taking the first set in dominant fashion at 25-14. The 14 points were the fewest BYU had scored in a set this season.
Set Two
Like the start of the first set, BYU scored the first point of the second set and held early leads. This time the Cougars were able to build some more separation, going up 4-2 on a solo block by Gavin Chambers and 5-2 on a kill by Oldani.
BYU went up 8-4 on an Oldani ace and then 9-4 on another Oldani kill, forcing a UCLA timeout.
The Bruins would chip away at the BYU lead from there, getting within two at 12-10, but the Cougars responded. A Teilon-Jonathan Tufuga kill capped a 3-0 run to put BYU up 17-12, forcing another UCLA timeout.
The Cougars kept rolling out of the timeout with anther kill from Oldani, ace from Oldani and kill from Chambers to get to a 20-12 lead.
An AJ Cottle kill finished things off for a 25-17 set victory, as BYU never trailed in the set.
The 17 UCLA point were the second-fewest points scored in a set this season for the Bruins, having scored 16 in a swet against Long Beach at the beginning of the season.
Set Three
UCLA built some early leads in the third set, going up 5-3 and 9-6.
A 3-0 Bruin run put UCLA up 14-9 and forced a BYU timeout. The Bruins scored two more consecutive points out of the timeout before the Cougars went on a 3-0 run with two Oldani kills and a combo block from Tyler Herget, Chambers and Trent Moser.
UCLA finished off the set at 25-17 to take a 2-1 lead in the match.
Set Four
Two aces by Moser and a solo block by Oldani fueled an early BYU run to go up 6-2 in the fourth set and force an early UCLA timeout.
UCLA came right back with a 5-1 run to tie up the set 7-7 and then later went on an 8-0 run to go up 15-9.
The Bruins wouldn't look back, eventually taking the 25-18 victory in the set and 3-1 victory in the match.
Up Next
The two teams are off tomorrow but will face each other again on Saturday at 6 p.m. Mountain Time in what will be the regular season finale for both teams.