Getting swept was only somewhat of a significant event for the
UCLA men’s volleyball team.
Sure there was some head-shaking and squeezing of the
volleyball.
But the top-ranked Bruins, at least for now, still maintain
their supreme confidence following Wednesday night’s 30-19,
30-28, 30-25 loss to No. 5 Long Beach State at Pauley Pavilion.
“(Long Beach) isn’t a better team than us,”
UCLA senior middle blocker Chris Peña said.
“That’s for damn sure. They were (only) better
tonight.”
The season, after all, is still young, and the Bruins (10-2, 5-2
Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) like to peak during the
playoffs, where they are almost sure to end up this year. Against
Long Beach (10-3, 5-2), however, UCLA got off to such a bad start
that it could not recover.
The 49ers registered eight of their 12 total blocks in Game 1,
picking up most of them on off-balanced shots the Bruins were
forced to take.
Despite being outscored by 11, UCLA actually had 16 kills in the
game to Long Beach’s 15, showing just how much the Bruins
gave the game away with their shoddy play.
“That was the worst first game in recent memory,”
UCLA coach Al Scates said. “We weren’t passing anything
well.”
Said senior libero Adam Shrader, “We started off terrible.
We came out timid. I don’t know why.”
Senior outside hitter J.T. Wenger was benched following the
first game in favor of junior Jonathan Acosta, who made his season
debut after recovering from appendicitis.
Acosta had seven kills and is now expected to start Saturday
against UC San Diego, but even he couldn’t save UCLA.
Not with the hard-serving 49ers, who had four aces, cranking
serve after serve to force tough passes.
“Our servers were better than their passers, and our
passers were better than their servers,” Long Beach coach
Alan Knipe said.
The Bruins allowed the 49ers to outhit them .394-.298 because,
according to several UCLA players, they did not stick to the
scouting report.
“We didn’t take their tendencies away from
them,” Scates said. “They got to hit their favorite
shots.”
It didn’t help UCLA that it had clawed back from six
points down before a controversial kill from middle blocker Duncan
Budinger won Game 2 for Long Beach.
UCLA freshman opposite hitter Steve Klosterman led all attackers
with 18 kills, and Jeff Wootten had 15 for Long Beach.
“They’re the best team we’ve played so
far,” Scates said. “They are (better) now, but
we’ll have to see in the playoffs.”