In its first-ever trip to the tournament, the Grand Canyon University Men's Club Volleyball team tore through the competition at the Southern California Collegiate Volleyball League's MLK Invite, winning five of its first six matches before succumbing to Utah Valley University's "A" squad in Sunday's championship match, 25-13, 18-25, 11-15. It's the highest number of wins that the Lopes have enjoyed in a single tournament in two years and gives the squad momentum for this coming weekend's SCCVL North Division and South Division Crossover Tournaments, which will be held at the same venue in Irvine, California.
 
It took little time for tournament fans to see that the Lopes had one of the better teams in the 32-team field, since GCU breezed through pool play Saturday with poised consistency. All three of their opponents in Pool B – Pasadena City College, University of Southern California "B" and Cal-State Northridge – stayed close to the Lopes in their matches but couldn't take a single set from the team in purple. The Lopes topped PCC by identical 25-18 scores before dispatching USC easily, 25-15, 25-19. They finished out the first day with a struggle with CSUN (who finished second in the pool) before prevailing, 25-22, 25-20, sending GCU to the Gold/Silver Crossover Bracket for Round 2 early Sunday morning.

Day 2 started with a 25-23, 25-19 loss to eventual Gold Bracket champion Arizona State University, dropping the Lopes to the Silver Bracket. Once there, though, GCU rebounded with straight-set wins over UC San Diego and UCLA to head to the championship match against UVU. The Lopes whitewashed the Wolverines, 25-13, in Set 1, but Utah Valley was unfazed, since they'd lost the first set of each of their previous three matches and had turned it around to win two of those. The Wolverines kept that trend going long enough to win the crown, coming back to win the second set by seven points and scoring the first four points of the final set to lead the rest of the way.
 
Lopes' senior opposite Tyler Pease led the charge with 33 kills on the weekend, complemented by fellow opposite Grant Hughes' 73 assists and six aces.
 
"We expected to play well, since we have a confident group that believes in each other and in our team's potential," said Lopes' Head Coach Eric Palmer. "Our goal on Day 1 was to win our pool and play for the Gold/Silver Crossover, and we accomplished that. Once we dropped the crossover, we shifted our focus, finished 5-2 and had the 3^rd-most set wins of all teams."
 
The Lopes' trip down Interstate 10 to Southern California this weekend will feature four matches each day as part of the SCCVL North Division Crossover Tournament Saturday and South Division Tourney Sunday. Play commences for the Lopes at 9AM Saturday (Arizona time) against UC Riverside, with rematches against CSUN and USC later in the day.