Spartans Knock Off UC Santa Barbara in Three Sets

LOS ANGELES – The Trinity Western men’s volleyball team beat UC Santa Barbara 3-0 (25-20, 25-19, 25-18) Friday in the Spartans opening match of the SAC Tournament at UCLA.

The win over UCSB, who was ranked third in the final NVA/AVCA Division I-II Men’s Coaches Poll of the 2021 season, sees TWU improve to 2-0 in California. The Spartans opened their trip with a 3-2 win over Pepperdine.

QUOTABLE
TWU Head Coach Ben Josephson 
“The highlights of that match are going to be out of control. The guys had a really high level of cool factor, but that was also a point of frustration. I felt like they were chasing a highlight instead of good volleyball. The problem was that you win volleyball games by being good at the little things. Our high end was beautiful but our low end was ugly. That was the lesson of the day. You can’t chase a highlight. You have to play good fundamental volleyball and when the moment comes to be a really good athlete, than be that guy.

“So, it was incredibly frustrating from a discipline standpoint and incredibly exciting from an athletic, high-end standpoint. The Morning Minute will be great, but the montage about how sloppy and undisciplined we were won’t be fun to watch. But we got through and we won and now we play twice tomorrow, including a big one against UCLA.”

UP NEXT 
The Spartans continue the SAC Tournament with a double-header on Saturday in which TWU will play USC at 11:30 a.m. before a 4:30 p.m. contest against the host UCLA Bruins.

About Spartan Athletics
As official members of U SPORTS, the Spartans currently compete in 13 sports in the Canada West conference, including women’s and men’s soccer, volleyball, basketball, hockey, cross country and track & field, as well as women’s rugby sevens. TWU also competes as an independent team in men’s rugby. Since TWU entered U SPORTS in 1999, the Spartans have won 12 U SPORTS team championships and 29 Canada West team championships.

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