Playing at home in the Final Four has been the UCLA men’s
volleyball team’s goal all season.
After Thursday night, however, it appears that the Bruins are
going to have to win on the road if they want to accomplish their
goal.
The No. 1 Bruins lost in four games to No. 4 Long Beach State
27-30, 30-24, 31-29, 31-29 in front of 1,886 fans at The Pyramid,
the sixth-largest crowd in Long Beach State history.
“It was definitely a huge disappointment for us,”
UCLA coach Al Scates said. “But it is something that we can
build on and learn from.”
With the loss, the Bruins (24-4, 17-4 MPSF) are guaranteed the
No. 2 spot in the conference standings, and thus must play the
Mountain Pacific Sports Federation semifinals and finals on the
road at No. 1 seed Pepperdine.
LBSU (19-9, 13-8 MPSF) will likely finish in fifth place in the
MPSF standings and could possibly meet the Bruins again in the MPSF
playoffs.
“(The 49ers) were a very resilient team out there
tonight,” Scates said. “We will just have to work on
our blocking if we face them again.”
Blocking was the story all night for the Bruins, who were at a
disadvantage without regular starters Allan Vince and Steve
Klosterman in the starting lineup. In their place were middle
blocker David Russell and opposite hitter Brennan Prahler
respectively, and both had trouble stopping the 49ers’
offensive attack.
“It was unfortunate that we didn’t have our best
blockers in tonight,” Scates said. “But when our
blockers are not hitting, we have to go to other
hitters.”
Without the Bruins’ top blockers in the lineup, the
49ers’ top hitters Robert Tarr and Yasser Sliti recorded 28
and 19 kills, respectively. Scates tried to limit their production
by bringing in junior Damien Scott at the end of the first game,
but the move came too late for the Bruins.
“I brought in Scott to limit Tarr’s hitting,”
Scates said. “But there were just too many other elements
that we could not overcome.”
The 49ers were celebrating their senior night for Sliti,
carrying with them an extra emotional lift into the first game,
which they won 30-27.
The Bruins came back to win the second game 30-24, but simply
could not come up with any crucial plays down the stretch, losing
the final two games 31-29, 31-29.
“We just did not play a well-rounded match tonight,”
Scates said. “There were cases of miscommunications and
mental lapses on the side of the players.”
The Bruins’ lack of focus came to a climax at the end of
the third game when setter Dennis Gonzalez misread the instructions
of coach Scates and set the ball to the wrong player to give the
49ers the game.
The Bruins have the chance to rebound from the loss Friday when
they face conference dweller UCSD, but even a victory will not
bring back what UCLA has already squandered, home court advantage
throughout the playoffs.