After a rough start to the season, it finally seems as if the Bruins are starting to find their niche.
About a week ago, the eighth-ranked UCLA men’s volleyball team (5-6, 3-5) was coming off two tough losses at home, including a five-game thriller to Pepperdine and a three-game sweep by crosstown rival USC, and struggling to find the ingredients they needed for success.
As the season is already well underway, the defending national champions needed something to go right against ninth-ranked Hawai’i (2-6, 2-4) to get back on track in a tough Mountain Pacific Sports Federation conference before it was too late.
Wednesday night saw the needed improvement with a 3-1 victory over Hawai’i, but it was Friday night when the Bruins revealed a glimpse of their true potential with a dominating sweep: 30-21, 30-26 and 30-27.
The Bruins came out in the first game playing with the fight they’ve needed all season. With immaculate serving by senior Steve Klosterman and precise hitting by redshirt freshman Brett Perrine, the Bruins led the entire game, finishing with a team hitting percentage of .438.
The second game saw Hawai’i start to creep up a little more, but UCLA, led by a career performance from sophomore Jamie Diefenbach, kept its unyielding form, solid serving and strong hitting percentage to win again.
And although the third game brought many ties and Hawai’i put up a good fight, the Rainbow Warriors simply couldn’t match the firepower that UCLA put on the floor.
After experimenting with different lineups all season, this conference sweep reveals that they might have found a recipe in which every starter contributes to the overall success of the team.
“This is the first match we’ve played all year where I didn’t have to make a substitution,” coach Al Scates said. “All the starters were rock solid. We’ve finally found a lineup.”
This lineup certainly seemed to have worked, as Diefenbach finished with 17 kills and a 0.542 attack percentage, which Klosterman supplemented with 15 kills of his own.
The team finished with nine blocks, an average of three per game compared to the near 0.5 average per game against USC, and hit above 0.400 as well.
“We had a timid air about us before,” Klosterman said. “We weren’t sure which guys were playing where, we weren’t really comfortable with each other on the court. But I think we got together and realized the season is dwindling fast, and we have to pull out some victories here and that motivated us. We got comfortable real quickly.”
The Bruins will play Pacific and Stanford at home this week to complete their six-game home stand, in which they hope for a repeat performance of Friday night. If they are able to do so, the rest of the season could hold great things for the Bruins.
“It’s time to start playing some volleyball,” Diefenbach said.