Lopes earn 1st MPSF Championship title

Saturday, April 20

Los Angeles, Calif.

6 p.m.

Grand Canyon

25-4,10-2MPSF

UCLA

23-5,11-1MPSF

Grand Canyon

UCLA

Photo by: Katie Chin/USC Athletics

4/20/2024 11:39:00 PM | Men's Volleyball

Box Score

After defeating No. 1 UCLA, GCU claims automatic bid to NCAA tournament

By: Nathan Peters

LOS ANGELES – Grand Canyon was crowned Mountain Pacific Sports Federation tournament champions after defeating No. 1 UCLA on Saturday night in a five-set thriller.

Entering Saturday's championship game, the Lopes' impressive resume and 24-4 record made a second consecutive NCAA tournament berth a near certainty. But GCU's Selection Sunday drama will no longer revolve around whether the Lopes are in the field. With an automatic bid and a win over the nation's No. 1 team, the drama will now center around the strength of GCU's seed in the eight-team tourney starting April 30 in Long Beach, California.

"I'm ultimately just proud," Lopes head coach Matt Werle said. "We believed that we could be MPSF champions, and our guys acted on it."

The GCU core proved from the outset that it had what it took. In the final set, the Lopes and Bruins opened with a 5-5 deadlock. From then on, there was no missing the opportunity to take down 23-4 UCLA.

The team in purple and white closed the match on a 10-5 run, starting with a kill and an ace from graduate opposite Camdeni Gianni for a lead the Lopes would not surrender. Lopes sophomore middle blocker Cameron Thorne accounted for four of the eight points with two blocks and two kills, including the match-point kill off setter Nicholas Slight's assist to send the MPSF trophy to Phoenix for the first time.

"The things that we've been saying in the last few weeks is the importance of focusing on those little things and making sure that you have each other's backs and deflecting other teams' big points and just making sure that we're taking care of everything on our side of the net," Werle said.

The match began in close, intense fashion before the Lopes went on a 7-3 run.

Gianni led the Lopes in kills (16) and aces (four). The first ace came in the first set which put the Lopes lead to 11-7.

The Lopes tied their season high in aces with 10 thanks to contributions from Gianni, senior outside hitter Jackson Hickman, graduate opposite Jarrett Anderson, senior middle blocker Rico Wardlow and Slight.

One of the Lopes' best weapons was Anderson, a Division III transfer from Springfield who had played 39 of the team's 90 sets this season. He ended the night with 12 kills, nine digs, and two aces in his third consecutive double-digit kill match after having three on the season previously.

"We kept some pressure on certain guys and had some really big blocks that I think got our guys excited," Werle said.

The Lopes had 10 blocks on the match with another massive performance from Thorne, who had a match-high eight despite going against MPSF Player of the Year Merrick McHenry of UCLA.

After taking command of the match with a strong first set, the Lopes fell in the second with a close battle.

"The sets that we lost, we didn't allow ourselves an opportunity to make some of those big plays that we thrive on," Werle said. "Once that stuff started rolling, we just try to keep preaching to do those little things: have fun, play loose. We have nothing to lose going into this, and there are some guys that really stepped up."

GCU opened the third set and quickly showed it was comfortable with a back-and-forth battle to a 7-5 lead before breaking out with five unanswered points that included two Hickman aces.

The Lopes closed the set with two UCLA errors to win it 25-17 and take a 2-1 match lead.

The fourth set was intriguing at Galen Center, where UCLA stole a 25-18 win to even the match at 2-2 before GCU's victorious fifth set.

The Lopes' core group earned three all-tournament honorees: Gianni, Thorne and Slight, the tournament's Most Valuable Player.

Slight, the point guard of the GCU offense, ended the match with 46 assists.

"Nic did a number of really good things tonight offensively, just running, keeping their block off-balance, finding the right seams, getting the middles the ball when we needed to," Werle said. "I thought he did a nice job reversing flow and getting Jarrett the ball at the right times and doing some long sets to create some one-on-ones."

Slight's championship performance marked his 10th match of 40 or more assists this season, with three coming during the MPSF Championship.

"Nic really deserved MVP," Werle said. "What he did for our offense was phenomenal, but he also put himself in a defensive position and made some plays when we needed to. He really just sold out … he left it all out there tonight, and that's all we asked of him."

By winning the MPSF Championship title, GCU earned an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament that starts with the April 30 quarterfinals at Long Beach State's Walter Pyramid.

This is GCU's second consecutive NCAA tournament appearance after earning an at-large bid last season.

"This is a historical moment for our program, and we've got some more things ahead of us in a couple weeks that we're really excited for," Werle said. "We just know the job's not done yet."