Last time the UCLA men’s volleyball team faced Pepperdine,
the Bruins were at full strength, playing at home, and had won
three of their previous four matches.
The Bruins were motivated to avenge their loss to the Waves in
the 2005 NCAA Finals, and junior Steve Klosterman had a career
night.
Yet with all that motivated them, the Bruins still lost.
Since getting swept by the Waves on March 1, UCLA (12-11, 5-9
MPSF) has lost all three of its conference matches and enter
tonight’s rematch with all the odds seemingly stacked against
them.
The match will be at the hostile environment of
Pepperdine’s Firestone Fieldhouse, where the No. 4 Waves
(12-4, 12-4) have a 6-2 record this year.
“(Firestone Fieldhouse) is a hard place to play at, since
the lights are low and they have a big home court advantage with so
many fans coming out to their games,” Klosterman said.
“With their high ranking, they are going to be very
motivated against us. They don’t like us there, and
it’s going to be a hostile place. But hopefully we can feed
off that and stay focused.”
The Bruins will also be at a disadvantage without starting
setter senior Dennis Gonzalez, who suffered a high ankle sprain in
last weekend’s match against Hawai’i and will be out at
least another two weeks.
Gonzalez is the most experienced Bruin player, and is often the
emotional leader on the court. In his place, freshman Matt Wade
will be setting the team.
“Without Dennis, we lose the fire, the leadership and the
experience he brings,” Klosterman said. “But Matt is a
talented young setter, and this will give him
experience.”
Having already played 48 of the Bruins’ 82 games this
season, Wade averages 8.4 set assists per game and can be relied on
to provide UCLA with solid setting.
“Matt did a great job after Dennis was injured last
weekend, and we actually hit better the second night against
Hawai’i than we did in the first match,” UCLA coach Al
Scates said. “Setting is the position we’re deep at, so
I’m not worried about that.”
Facing the Bruins will be a Pepperdine squad that leads the
conference in blocking with an average of 3.65 blocks per game,
compared to 2.30 for the Bruins. The Waves are led by Tom Hulse and
Andy Hein, who are both ranked in the top 10 nationally in
blocking.
Hein also paces the nation in hitting percentage, swinging at a
.525 clip with 164 kills.
But at least the Bruins know what to expect from the Waves.
“They’ve had the same starters all year and run a
simple offense,” Scates said. “Their middle hitters are
fantastic, and Hein is a hard man to stop. But we just need to step
up our hitting against them, and if we have a good hitting night,
we will beat these guys.”
In the Bruins’ last match against Pepperdine, only
Klosterman was effective, slamming a career-high 27 kills (.511).
The rest of the team combined for only 20 kills.
Klosterman, however, sprained his thumb in practice Monday and
was held out of practice for two days. He is expected to contribute
tonight.
If the Bruins are to win, they will need to have several other
players come up with big performances.
“We need more than one person to step up because no team
should be riding on one players’s shoulders like we did with
Klosterman,” freshman Sean O’Malley said.
“That’s not how teams are able to win consistently,
and we can’t always rely on Steve to keep us in games. We all
need to be ready to play quality ball throughout the entire
match.”
After tonight’s match against Pepperdine, the Bruins will
return home this weekend for matches against USC on Friday and
George Mason on Saturday.
Even though they will be playing three matches in three days,
the Bruins are confident they can be successful this weekend.
“We are staying focused on one game at a time, but we need
to start beating teams if we are going to make it into the league
playoffs,” Scates said. “We need to beat Pepperdine,
then we need to beat ‘SC and George Mason the next two
nights.”