In a game against Hawai’i in which so many things went
wrong, prompting UCLA men’s volleyball coach Al Scates to
say, “I don’t know one thing we did well as a
team,” one point was glaringly obvious: The Bruins cannot win
without blocking. Tonight, when playing UC Irvine at Crawford Hall,
UCLA will need to find its blocking aptitude after being completely
unable to establish a blocking presence in Saturday’s 3-0
loss to Hawai’i. On Saturday, the Bruins had only four total
blocks, their lowest total of the season, compared to the
Warriors’ 14. The ten-block differential was also a season
low. “We didn’t block, they did, and that was the
reason why we lost,” middle blocker Allan Vince said.
“We knew exactly what we needed to do, we just didn’t
do it.” While Hawai’i was sending two or three players
to block the Bruins, UCLA was often unable to move players into
positions that would allow them to block the varied Warrior
attacks. “We did a very poor job of picking up the tendencies
of their hitters,” Scates said. “We just let them hit
whatever they wanted to all night long. A guy like (Pedro) Azenha
can hit whatever you give him. Hawai’i blockers, meanwhile,
were able to exploit the Bruins’ inability to pass the ball
to front of the net and frustrate the Bruins’ outside
hitters. Bruins Steve Klosterman and Jonathan Acosta, as a result,
committed a combined nine hitting errors and had a .210 hitting
percentage. “When we can’t even pass the ball to the
setter, we have no chance of hitting the ball,” Vince said.
“There is no wonder they had two and three blockers on our
hitters.” Although the loss dropped the Bruins to third in
the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, UCLA is confident that it
can improve its blocking in future games, starting with UC Irvine.
“We need a lot of work blocking those hits out of the
backcourt, because if we don’t, UC Irvine will do the same
thing to us on Wednesday,” Scates said.
GONZALEZ’S BACK PAIN: Junior setter Dennis Gonzalez was
limited in his play this weekend due to back spasms. “My back
just locked up,” Gonzalez said. “Before
(Friday’s) match I could barely bend my body.” Gonzalez
tallied 52 set assists on Friday and 35 on Saturday before being
replaced in the second half of both matches by freshman Gaby
Acevedo. “The trainer said he was good to go both nights, but
he wasn’t as effective as he usually is,” Scates said.
“He wasn’t as flexible, so we couldn’t move the
ball around with our usual rapidity.”