Right before the start of Friday night’s match against
Brigham Young University, Dennis Gonzalez walked up to teammate
Paul Johnson and thrust his UCLA jersey into Johnson’s face.
It was an obvious reminder to Johnson and the rest of the Bruins,
who had lost to BYU Thursday, of the tradition of excellence that
surrounds the UCLA men’s volleyball program.
It took the Bruins two games to live up to that tradition, but
when they did, their serving propelled UCLA to a come-from-behind
3-2 victory over No. 1 BYU.
No. 3 UCLA won 28-30, 26-30, 30-22, 30-27, 15-9, in front of a
season-high 1,909 raucous fans at Pauley Pavilion. With the
victory, the Bruins clinched home court in the first round of the
MPSF playoffs and ended BYU’s 21-match winning streak.
“It’s good to give a team its first loss in 21
matches,” senior opposite J.T. Wenger said.
After the second game, it appeared as though the Cougars would
win their 22nd match in a row. At that point, BYU (22-4, 18-2 MPSF)
had out-blocked UCLA 10-2 and was hitting .444 to the Bruins’
.279 hitting clip.
However, for the third game, UCLA coach Al Scates substituted
senior opposite Marcin Jagoda for starting freshman opposite Steve
Klosterman, and Jagoda gave the Bruins (21-5, 15-5 MPSF) a
much-needed spark, making seven kills on eight attempts. UCLA raced
out to a 16-8 lead, and when the Cougars went on an 8-2 run to make
the score 18-16, consecutive UCLA blocks again gave the Bruins
breathing room.
“I love Jagoda off of the bench,” Scates said.
“I had thoughts of starting him because he played so well on
Thursday. He deserved the start.”
While the Bruins improved their blocking in the last three games
of the match, it was their aggressive serving that led them to
victory. Through game two, both teams had seven service errors,
while UCLA had three aces and BYU had one.
But the Bruins continued to serve hard and while their service
errors racked up, so did their aces, and BYU’s respect for
UCLA’s serving abilities grew.
“UCLA started serving harder,” BYU senior outside
hitter Fernando Pessoa said. “Maybe we didn’t react as
well. They won because of their good, not our bad.”
The Bruins registered three aces and seven errors in the fourth
game, and their tough jump serves set up many easy points.
“We were forcing horrible passes from BYU,” Scates
said. “They went to four receivers and that shows a lot of
respect for our jump serve.”
UCLA led the fifth game 9-8 before going on a 6-1 tear to win
the game and the match. Fittingly, Wenger closed out the match for
UCLA with consecutive aces.
“We were swinging at the ball,” said Jagoda, who led
the team with 15 kills and hit .667. “When we played them the
first time, we let up on the serve, but tonight we didn’t and
that’s the way you’ve got to do it.”
Senior quick hitter Chris Peña and Wenger had 12 kills
each, while Johnson had eight kills and a team-high four aces.
Pessoa led BYU with 26 kills, while senior opposite Joe Hillman
had 16 kills but hit just .242.
As he did on Thursday, Hillman dealt with chants of
“graduate” and “six more years” from UCLA
fans. Hillman is playing in his sixth year of college volleyball,
but the NCAA has cleared him to play.
BYU was without sophomore middle blocker Victor Batista, who is
being held out of play while the NCAA investigates his
eligibility.