Volleyball confident entering MPSF playoffs

When it comes to the postseason, No. 4 UCLA and No. 5 UC Santa Barbara are anything but strangers. Saturday will mark the third time in six seasons that the two men’s volleyball rivals will butt heads in the opening round of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation playoffs, and the fifth total time they will meet this season. Last year, the Gauchos were the Bruins’ first postseason victim en route to their 19th NCAA volleyball title, and in 2002, UCSB knocked UCLA out in the quarterfinals.

So when the Bruins (19-10, 13-9 MPSF) take on UCSB (19-11, 14-8) Saturday night in Robertson Gymnasium, they will undoubtedly have the Gauchos’ tendencies engraved in their minds. UCSB has thrown everything but the kitchen sink at the Bruins throughout the years, emptying the bench and rotating in all of its available personnel.

“We’re prepared for any combination of their four outside hitters (two setters and two liberos), and we expect to see them all,” UCLA coach Al Scates said. “We’ve actually seen everybody who is going to play.”

The Bruins own the bragging rights to the season series 3-1, yet the one loss came in the same arena in which the two will meet Saturday. UCSB currently holds a home record of 7-4, while the Bruins have performed poorly on the road, accumulating a 4-7 record away from home.

“We’re not a great road team, but Santa Barbara isn’t a great home team as far as records go,” Scates said. “But our last road match was at ‘SC and we played great over there, so I think we’re over that problem.”

Whereas UCLA held the advantage when it hosted the play-in match last year, the Gauchos now have the slight upper-hand because of the home crowd.

“(The fans) love to beat UCLA because we’re the big mama bear and they’re the tiny little Gauchos,” outside hitter Paul George said. “They get fired up, it’s loud; it’s a small arena. They can pack the place with 500, whereas 500 in Pauley is like you can hear the crickets in the corner.”

Throughout the series matchups, even in the loss in January, the key to keeping the Gauchos at bay has been to contain the conference kill leader Evan Patak. The senior opposite averages 5.98 kills per game, but UCLA has managed to stifle the Gaucho big gun. In January, the Bruins held him to a .200 clip, despite him slamming 31 kills, and in the February win, UCLA shut him down to a .111 hitting percentage.

“They set him a ton of balls, so if youshut him down they gotta go to other people,” setter Kevin Ker said of Patak, who also leads the conference with 1.02 aces per game and 7.4 points per game.

“He’s a phenomenal player,” George said. “We gotta make sure when he goes back to the service line he doesn’t rattle off three or four points. He’s got something like 83 aces on the season. That’s ridiculous. I think I have 30 and I’m leading this team. I mean, it’s unbelievable.”

So while the statistics glorify UCSB as a team and Patak as its star, UCLA is fairly confident that it will emerge triumphant over the conference’s No. 1 team in hitting percentage, kills, aces and assists, as it has done three times before.

“(Those statistics are) against the rest of the country, and we’ve done a little better than that against Santa Barbara,” Scates said. “We’ve managed to hold those numbers down and score pretty well against them.”

POSTSEASON HONORS: As the playoffs are underway, postseason honors have also begun. Three Bruins were awarded conference honors, released in an announcement Thursday. Junior libero Tony Ker made the All-MPSF First Team, while senior opposite Steve Klosterman was selected to the Second Team. Fellow senior outside hitter George made it onto the Third Team.

No. 1 Pepperdine stole most of the honors, as setter Jonathan Winder was named MPSF Player of the Year and Waves coach Marv Dunphy was named MPSF Coach of the Year. Yamil Perez, a setter for BYU, was named the league’s Newcomer of the Year.

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