The UCLA men’s volleyball team has already exacted revenge
this season on UC Santa Barbara for last year’s first-round
Mountain Pacific Sports Federation tournament loss.
Now the No. 11 Bruins just want to beat the No. 13 Gauchos to
stay afloat in the race to make the tournament.
The Bruins, currently ninth in the MPSF, need to beat teams
below them in the standings, starting with UCSB tonight at
Robertson Gym.
“We can’t underestimate these guys,” junior
middle blocker Chris Peña said. “It’s going to be
a small gym with drunken frat boys in it.”
UCSB has been surprisingly good as of late. The Gauchos split
two matches with BYU, sweeping the No. 4 Cougars on Saturday.
In the victory, Keith Busam had 15 kills and Matt Boelk and Jan
Carlo Zegarra added 11 kills apiece.
“Hopefully after four days, they have returned to
normal,” UCLA head coach Al Scates said. “They were
pretty normal the night we played them.”
UCLA (6-7, 3-6 MPSF) has already swept UCSB (5-10, 2-7) on Feb.
5.
BYU, for what it’s worth, has already swept UCLA
twice.
“Common opponents don’t mean a damn thing,”
Scates said.
“All the knuckleheads are going to beat each other,”
Peña said. “We just need to worry about
ourselves.”
Peña and freshman opposite hitter Matt McKinney went to
high school in nearby Santa Ynez.
McKinney is coming off a career night in Saturday’s sweep
of USC. He will play in his first road game since practicing
volleyball full-time instead of basketball.