Preparing for Gaucho showdown

UC Santa Barbara has a weapon that could slash the men’s
volleyball team’s hopes of coming away with a victory
tonight.

Gaucho opposite Evan Patak hammered down 40 kills against
Pacific last weekend, and the Bruins are looking to avoid becoming
Patak’s latest victim. When No. 3 UCLA (2-3, 0-2 MPSF) takes
on No. 6 UCSB (4-1, 2-0) at 7 p.m. in Robertson Gymnasium, the
Bruins will be intent on keeping a handle on the current
MPSF/Molten Player of the Week.

“They’ll be going to Patak a lot,” UCLA coach
Al Scates said. “We have to slow him down and keep him under
his average.”

After his performance against Pacific, Patak is leading the
nation with 6.88 kills per game. Though the Bruins have beaten and
contained Patak before ““ UCLA has not lost to UCSB since
April 20, 2002 ““ they must ensure that the senior opposite
doesn’t break off of his leash again.

“Evan Patak is a tremendous threat,” senior captain
Paul George said. “That’s the number one goal: to shut
him down. That’s going to be the ticket (to
winning).”

To combat Patak and the rest of the Gauchos, UCLA needs to
assemble an arsenal of its own, something that was clearly lacking
last weekend up in the mountains of Utah at BYU. On Friday, the
outside hitters were firing on all cylinders, and on Saturday the
middles finally hit their stride. All that’s left is to unite
that firepower into one cohesive unit.

“As a team for the first time, in that last game at BYU,
we learned about fire in general and just being fired up,”
George said. “We have a lot of weapons. (Senior opposite
Steve) Klosterman is obviously a huge gun for us. Our middles
finally turned it on up at BYU. We’re going to put all those
weapons together and really use that firepower on the outsides and
the middle to swing away. I know we can play with that fire and
that energy.”

Offensive fortitude or not, UCLA will also need a defense that
can cool down UCSB’s league-leading offense. The Gauchos are
topping the conference with a .440 hitting percentage, which is
even higher than the Bruins saw from BYU, which averaged an output
of .426 against UCLA last weekend. The Bruins know they must take a
stand, starting in the form of tough serves.

The Bruins were essentially taken out of the matches against BYU
because they were unable to unleash powerful jump serves, any
team’s biggest weapon. Now that UCLA is down at sea level, it
will have the opportunity to slow down the opponent’s offense
and give its own defense a fighting chance at winning the
point.

“It’s hard to dig balls against teams that bounce
them on the 10-foot line,” George said. “We’ve
been working on footwork and blocking to make sure we get to the
right location so that our back row has a chance to dig balls. Two
and three digs a game just isn’t going to cut it with some of
the best teams out there.”

UCLA is bringing up the rear of the MPSF with 5.83 digs per
game, a number that can be attributed to an insufficient serve and
block.

Last weekend, the Cougars slaughtered balls to the court nearly
uncontested, hardly giving All-American libero Tony Ker time to
even dive for the ball. With balls being pounded straight down,
most of the time all the Bruin defenders could do was shield
themselves.

“It was hard up there at BYU because our serving
wasn’t tough as it normally is,” Ker said. “When
our serving is not as tough, then the other team passes it better
and therefore it’s harder for our blockers to block. Then
their attackers have nobody up or one person up and they’re
just bouncing balls. Now that we’re back to sea level
it’s going to be okay.”

Despite the two three-game sweeps last weekend, UCLA is carrying
some momentum from that final set, in which the Bruins pushed BYU
to 33 points. They were blocking, finding seams, and hammering
serves as best they could.

“It was a little depressing after the first night at BYU,
we didn’t play very well,” Ker said. “But (by)
the third game (on Saturday) we started to come together and play
really well and have some intensity going. I was really happy with
that. I was upset that we lost the game, but there was a glimpse of
hope that we’re going to start playing really
well.”

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