USC Sweeps CBU For Home Court Playoff Advantage
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The Trojans are looking for another winning performance against BYU (Twitter).
The Trojans were more than prepared to come out victorious over the Lancers. Coming off of a sweep over Stanford, USC had their sights set on back-to-back wins.
“We kept our focus on us,” Ferguson explained. “There was never any thought of anything else.”
Against the Lancers on Thursday, junior outside hitter Alex Slaught racked up a team-high 11 kills and 2 aces. Freshman outside hitter Larry Tuileta had 9 kills and 1 ace.
The Trojans dominated the net with a .465 hitting percentage and 8 team blocks while CBU only had a .247 hitting percentage and 2.5 team blocks.
On Saturday, the Trojans had a repeat dominant performance.
Senior opposite Cristian Rivera led the team with 13 kills and 1 ace. On Senior Night, Rivera really shined. He was consistently tough at the net for the Trojans.
Both Slaught and Tuileta repeated their performances from Thursday night with 11 and 10 kills, respectively.
Senior middle blockers Chris Lischke and Tyler Cundiff recorded 4 and 2 kills, respectively. Senior setter Micah Christenson ran the offense with 35 assists and 2 aces.
Speaking of Senior Night, five Trojan seniors were honored after the win. Rivera, Cundiff, Lischke, Feathers, and Christenson were all presented with framed jerseys to commemorate their dedication to the team during their time at USC.
Of the seniors, Ferguson spoke about how special the class is. Throughout the locker room the team has two signs; one says “Above Reproach: Athletically, Academically, Socially” and the other is the ideal traits of a Trojan—faithfully, scholarly, skillful, courageous, ambitious. 
Micah Christenson continues to lead the Trojans to victory (Charlie Magovern/Neon Tommy).
Ferguson made a point that this senior class represents all of those traits in the best way since he has been a coach at USC. He emphasized his belief that the school and all those connected to this senior class should be beyond proud of everything that they have accomplished, both on and off the court.
“I cant thank them enough,” Ferguson shared. “It’s been my honor and privilege to coach them.”
While this was the senior class’s final regular season match at home, they’ll have a chance to keep playing together when they host BYU at home. When the Trojans and Cougars met earlier in the season, the two split the series with USC winning and 5 sets and BYU winning in 4 the following night.
Similar to the Trojans, the Cougars have recently gone through a bit of a rough patch, but are starting to pick it back up. BYU upset No. 1 Hawaii on back-to-back nights at home in 4 and 5 sets, respectively.
On a 4-match win streak, the Cougars will be quite the tough match for the Trojans.
“It’ll probably be similar to what happened here in February,” Ferguson commented. “We know it’s going to be battle.”
Next Saturday, the Trojans will battle the No. 6 BYU Cougars (17-9, 14-8 MPSF)—the fifth seed—at 7pm at the Galen Center.
Contact Staff Reporter Jodee Sullivan here and on Twitter here.
