Everyone in Westwood knew that former UCLA men’s
volleyball assistant coach John Speraw would someday make quite a
head coach.
So when Speraw left UCLA this past off-season to take the head
coaching position at UC Irvine, it was clear that it was only a
matter of time before the Bruins would have to face off against a
prepared bunch of Anteaters.
With Saturday’s 3-2 victory over UCLA (2-1) in the
championship match of the UCSB/Elephant Bar Tournament, Speraw has
already put UCI (5-0) on the collegiate volleyball map.
“I thought our team performed very well,” Speraw
said. “UCLA is a very talented team, and they do some
different things that challenged us, and we adjusted.”
The No. 1-seeded Bruins lost 30-21, 26-30, 18-30, 38-36, 15-17,
as the No. 7 Anteaters won the decisive fifth game on strong
serving from Spencer Bemus, who had five of UCI’s six aces,
two of which came in the fifth game.
“We were in good position to win the final match,”
UCLA head coach Al Scates said. “We came back and won a
dramatic fourth game. We actually had a lead in the fifth game, and
Bemus unleashed a serve that had to have been about 90 miles per
hour. I called a time-out to freeze him, and he aced us
again.”
“We are going to look at him serve,” Scates
continued. “He’s a tremendous server, and that was the
difference. Their offense is very quick, it’s ahead of the
rest of us, and we better be ready to make some good
improvements.”
Sophomore outside hitter Jonathan Acosta and junior quick hitter
Matt Shubin led the Bruins with 14 kills each. Junior libero Adam
Shrader had a match-high 13 digs.
“Irvine has a solid team,” Acosta said. “They
have a lot of well-rounded players that don’t make many
mistakes. Compared to them we made too many mistakes, and they are
a team that capitalizes on other teams’ mistakes.”
For Speraw, the chance to knock off his former associates was
unnerving, to say the least.
“I got to be honest, it was a little weird to see familiar
faces on the other side of the net,” Speraw said. “I
knew it was coming, and I thought the first time coaching against
UCLA would be a little different for me. I’m glad the first
matchup was in the tournament because maybe next time it
won’t be so weird.”
“Next time” is this Friday night when the Bruins
host UCI.
Despite not making the playoffs last season, the Anteaters, led
by six returning seniors, played strongly in the tournament. Jimmy
Pelzel posted a team-high 25 kills against the Bruins.
UCI also posted wins over Pepperdine, Stanford and host
UCSB.
“(Speraw) had six players coming back on that Irvine team,
and they are veterans. He has them playing better now than they
were last season,” Scates said. “We knew they were
real. He’s done a great job with them.”
The Bruins defeated USC 30-25, 32-34, 30-27, 30-24 Friday in the
first round of the tournament. Acosta led the Bruins with 20 kills
while opposite Allan Vince, in his first career start, added 15
kills.
In the semifinals the Bruins defeated Cal State Northridge
30-25, 30-18, 30-21.
In spite of a near-perfect tournament, it appears as though
simply reaching the finals of the tournament is not good enough for
the Bruins.
“While we hadn’t played for a month, and we had only
been practicing for four days (prior to the tournament), and while
we played well,” Acosta said, “we could play so much
better.”