After suffering through its worst season in school history in
2003, the UCLA men’s volleyball team clearly needed to make
some changes.
Coach Al Scates, winner of 18 NCAA titles and 1,000 some odd
matches, wasn’t going anywhere. So it was the pathos of the
program that needed to go.
Consider Scates’ season expectations for this year:
“We’ll do better than we did last year. Our goal is to
win the NCAA championship, but so many teams are so good this
year.”
No championship prediction here, but then again, making them
before the past three seasons didn’t do any good.
As UCLA (3-0) makes its home debut tonight at Pauley Pavilion
against Division III La Verne, the Bruins know full well that if
they don’t win a national championship this season, they will
have gone four years without having won one for the first time in
school history.
“Am I intrinsically motivated? You bet,” Scates
said.
That the team last year failed to make the postseason with a
record of 10-12 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation also
provides plenty of motivation.
“It was everything that went wrong,” senior libero
Adam Shrader said. “As far as I’m concerned, last
year’s over. The national championship in May ““
that’s what we’re looking for.”
“We didn’t have the attitude, Scates said. “We
didn’t have passion for the game. The guys on the floor this
year will want to win.”
“I’m making them pay a price to be on this
team.”
Now that the team has returned to the its newly renovated
practice floor in the Student Activities Center, practices laster a
half-hour longer than those in the fall.
The hard work done in the fall paid off Saturday when the Bruins
won the Elephant Bar Invitational, earning them a No. 2 national
ranking.
That so many players received playing time from last year will
be beneficial.
“We’re really deep ““ everywhere,” Scates
said. “This team is better than last year’s team.
Everybody has improved.”
An influx of new blood is impacting the program as well.
Sophomore setter Beau Peters, a transfer from Long Beach State,
has thus far beat out Dennis Gonzalez for the right to replace
graduated three-year starter Rich Nelson.
It helps that Peters has experience setting freshman opposite
hitter Steve Klosterman, the team’s top recruit, from their
days at Huntington Beach Marina High.
Klosterman emerged as the team’s leading attacker at the
Elephant Bar, lending credence to the belief that he is the
opposite UCLA was missing all last season.
“He’s for real,” Scates said.
“We’re going to give him a lot of sets.”
“I came here to win another championship and make the
tradition live on,” Klosterman said.
Junior Kris Kraushaar, perhaps the team’s most improved
player, starts at outside hitter alongside junior team captain
Jonathan Acosta.
Acosta will be sidelined until February due to appendicitis.
Senior J.T. Wenger will replace him until then, and sophomore
Damien Scott is also an option.
At middle blocker, UCLA is so deep despite the loss of Scott
Morrow that two-year starter Chris Peña will be on the
bench.
Juniors Paul Johnson and Allan Vince, a converted outside
hitter, will start, as 6-foot-11-inch Nick Scheftic waits in the
wings.
“These guys ““ they believe,” Scates said.
“We know this is going to be a special year for
us.”