March 10, 2016 Final Stats
HIGHLIGHTS
PHOTO GALLERY
MALIBU, Calif.: - The 9th-ranked Pepperdine men's volleyball team defeated 15th-ranked California Baptist, 3-1, this Thursday night in Firestone Fieldhouse. The Waves took the first two sets 25-23 and 25-18 before dropping the third 20-25. In the deciding set, the home team prevailed with a 25-20 win to secure a 3-1 defeat over the fellow Mountain Pacific Sports Federation opponent.
As a team, Pepperdine hit for a .398 success rate after smashing 55 kills on 103 attempts with only 14 errors. The team also produced 9.0 team blocks, five aces and 27 digs all night.
Senior Matt Tarantino (Van Nuys, Calif./Bishop Alemany HS) led the Waves with a well-rounded effort, amassing 18 kills on a .467 hitting percentage, and adding three service aces, six digs, three block including one solo and three assists.
Junior Mitchell Penning (St. Louis, Mo./ Westminster Christian Academy) also had a solid match with eight kills on a .500 attack output, while adding seven blocks for the Waves.
The Waves started the night with a strong advantage, going up 5-1 over the Lancers with a strong service output from junior setter Joshua Stewart (San Jose, Calif./Bellarmine College Prep/Pacific). Cal Baptist continued to fight to stay in the set, however, but could not quite overcome the home team. After the Waves established a 12-7 lead on back-to-back kills by Tarantino and a smash by Penning, the opposition started to gain more momentum.
The Lancers worked back for a 16-16 tie and the two teams went point-for-point for the 19-19 mark. Kills by Tarantino and sophomore Colby Harriman (Rochester, N.Y./McQuaid Jesuit HS), along with some costly attack errors by the opposition, allowed the Waves to earn the close 25-23 set win to go up 1-0 on the night.
Harriman was the second Wave with double-figure kills as he delivered 15 to the opposition, while tallying three blocks and two digs towards the effort. Freshman David Wieczorek (Chicago, Ill./Loyola Academy) added eight kills on a .438 hitting percentage with only one error in 16 swings. He added seven digs and 21 service receptions as well.
Stewart was instrumental in the play-maker role, distributing 48 assists and adding four digs, three blocks and one ace for the home team.
After starting the second set exchanging tie scores at the 4-4, 7-7 and 10-10 marks, the Waves started to pull away with a three-point 15-12 lead. CBU was quick to come back, however, on a few successful blocks, tying the match once again, 16-16. Pepperdine was not opening to giving up more points in the set, though, and worked to extend the lead to 20-16 on a service ace by Max States (Honolulu, Hawai'i/Solimar Academy) and a Tarantino kill. With Tarantino starting his last service of the set with a Penning, Harriman block, an ace and a Harriman kill, the Waves gained enough momentum to end the second set 25-18 to go up 2-0 on the night.
The Lancers had an early advantage in the third set, going up 6-2 early before the Waves started to rally back. The home team tied the set at the 13-13 mark on a few back-to-back kills by Harriman, but that would be the only time the Waves would come close to overcoming the opposition in the set. Cal Baptist pulled away to a 25-20 set win to extend the match to a fourth set.
Pepperdine came out with a vengeance in the fourth set, intent on finishing the match off in four. The Waves did just that after a 10-10 tie early in the set, the home team forced three consecutive block errors and added a solo block by Tarantino to go up 14-10. The Lancers attempted to come back from the deficit, but the home team was unwilling to spot them an edge and secured the four-set victory with a 25-20 final set win.
Sophomore Clay Carr (Costa Mesa, Calif./Newport Harbor HS) added six kills with one error on 10 attempts to end the night. Sophomore libero Weston Barnes (Laguna Beach, Calif./Laguna Beach HS) added four digs and 19 service receptions as well.
Next, Pepperdine will travel to Palo Alto on Saturday (March 12) to challenge No. 3 Stanford to a rematch. First serve is set for 4 p.m. Live stats, live stream and game notes can all be found by following this link: http://gowav.es/mvb2014.
