Jan. 7, 2006

The USC men's volleyball team (2-1 overall) opened its 2006 season with a sixth-place finish at the 42nd annual Elephant Bar Invitational at UC Santa Barbara this weekend.

On Friday (Jan. 6) in the 8-team tourney, the seventh-seeded Trojans fell to No. 2 seed Long Beach State in the afternoon's first round, 30-23, 30-18, 30-19, but rebounded that evening to sweep No. 6 Pacific, 30-26, 30-28, 30-27.

Then, in the fifth place match on Saturday (Jan. 7), Troy lost to No. 5 UC Irvine, 30-23, 30-27, 30-28.

"Long Beach State was really, really good and we had a tough time with them," said USC fourth-year head coach Turhan Douglas. "But we came back and played really well later that day against Pacific. Then, we were sluggish against UC Irvine, but I'm looking forward to playing them again later this season."

Senior 3-year starting outside hitter Joao Grangeiro missed the Long Beach State match after being delayed on his return from his native Brazil. And the Trojans played the tourney without sophomore middle blocker Andrew Vernon, a 2005 starter, who is recovering from fall surgery on both knees.

Douglas expects Vernon to play when USC next takes the court. The Trojans open Mountain Pacific Sports Federation play with a pair of 7 p.m. home matches in the Lyon Center, first against Pacific this Friday (Jan. 13) and then versus Stanford on Saturday (Jan. 14).