Loyola storms past Cardinal to win national title
History was made Saturday night as the Loyola Ramblers won the NCAA championship in men's volleyball by defeating the Stanford Cardinal 25-17, 19-25, 25-16, 25-15.
Chants of “L! U! C!” reigned from the sellout crowd at the Joseph J. Gentile Center on the campus of Loyola University.
This was the Ramblers' first appearance in the title game. It was also the first championship for the school since the 1963 men's basketball national championship game.
The Ramblers got past Penn State in the semifinals Thursday night to set up the championship game appearance.
Junior outside hitter Cody Caldwell led the way with 21 points and a game-high 20 kills.
He was also named Most Outstanding Player of the tournament.
Senior Libero Peter Jasaitis summed up the team's emotions after winning the national championship.
“This is the right way to go out, right? We haven't lost a game since January,” he said. “Everyone on our team bought into the system. We had a full team.”
Loyola head coach Shane Davis said he hopes the school doesn't have to wait another 50 years for to win a national championship.
“Hopefully it's going to sooner than 50 years before we have another one.”
The Ramblers won 26 straight going into the championship game.
Former Wheaton-Warrenville standout Thomas Jaeschke, the current Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association player of the week, had 13 points and tied for second on the team with 12 kills.
Stanford head coach John Kosty said his team ran into a team that played well at the right time.
“We ran into a hot and a hot serving team tonight. They kept us off guard and off balance all night,” Kosty said.
“We struggled to get into system and when you do that, it is tough to win to against a good serving team like Loyola.”
He also said the sellout crowd played a part.
“It was pretty loud today. I thought they had a great home-court advantage,” he said. “We thought we had opportunities to silence the crowd. They wouldn't stay quiet.”
Senior outside hitter Brian Cook led the Cardinal with 17½ points.
More than 4,480 attended Saturday night's championship game.