Wednesday against UCSB, the Bruins once again showed that they
can overcome slow starts to defeat their opponent.
The Bruins lost their first game 23-30 to the Gauchos but
bounced back to win the last three games and the match 30-18,
30-25, 22-20.
The Bruins (11-2, 6-2 MPSF) started the match with senior Marcin
Jagoda as opposite and Steve Klosterman as the outside hitter. But
the strategy failed as the Bruins combined for a .128 hitting
percentage.
“We came out the first game with a new rotation that had
worked well in practice,” Klosterman said. “But we came
out timid and never recovered.”
In the second game, UCLA countered with J.T. Wenger as a
replacement for Jagoda at outside and a move to opposite for
Klosterman.
The lineup change inspired the Bruins, as Klosterman and Wenger
combined for 13 kills in the second game, and the Bruins rolled to
a 30-18 victory.
“Wenger came out firing and Klosterman stepped up his
game,” coach Al Scates said. “They finally started to
challenge their blockers and played to our game plan.”
Klosterman finished the match with 24 kills while J.T. Wenger
finished with 20 as they were the high men for the Bruins. They
were helped by Chris Peña and Kris Krashaar as they
contributed with 11 and nine kills, respectively.
“Peña and Johnson weren’t particularly hot
tonight,” Scates said. “But our setter (Dennis
Gonzalez) did a good job of finding the hitters that were in rhythm
and spreading the ball around.”
The Bruins finished the match with 53 digs compared to the
Gauchos’ 30 digs. The differential helped negate UCSB’s
blocking opportunities, which was integral to the Gauchos’
(8-5, 4-4) success in the first game when they had six team
blocks.
“We weren’t challenging their blockers in the first
game, and we hit a lot of balls out,” Scates said. “But
we started to block their tendencies and that was the key to the
game.”
Senior Marcin Jagoda was given the start against the Gauchos in
reward for his recent performance against UCSD in which in he
recorded a career-high 23 kills.
“Marcin played an unbelievable game against UCSD and his
performance warranted extra playing time,” Scates said.
Missing from the starting lineup were both J.T. Wenger and
Jonathan Acosta. Acosta was inactive after being unable to recover
fully from an illness.