Redshirt freshman opposite Jack Polales is excited to go home.
While many UCLA students are going home to family and friends for the long weekend, the suburban-Chicago native, along with the rest of the men’s volleyball team, is headed to Chicago this weekend for two matches against two of the top teams in the Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association.
The No. 6 UCLA Bruins (6-5) will face the No. 15 Lewis Flyers (5-2) today and the Loyola-Chicago Ramblers (5-1) Saturday in their last out-of-conference road trip of the season.
Polales added that the team will be focusing this weekend on playing better together.
“Obviously, we’ve have good solo performances and we’ve had decent team performances,” Polales said, “but we haven’t put it together 100 percent yet.”
“(This weekend) will give us more time get that gelling together and hopefully start playing better and better.”
The Bruins have only played two road matches aside from the season-opening UCSB Collegiate Tournament. In those two matches, they fell in four sets to an over-powering UC Irvine team and played inconsistently at Long Beach to fall in five sets.
In those two road losses, the Bruins relied heavily on the play of junior outside hitter Garrett Muagututia but had little production from the rest of the team.
Against Long Beach, Muagututia hit .300 while the rest of the Bruins hit .157, and against Irvine, Muagututia hit .390 with the rest of the Bruins hitting .244.
Coach Al Scates said the Bruins will need to be a better road team if they hope for success this season.
“We have to be road warriors,” Scates said. “There have been some little flashes of it … but we are still looking for that really good game on the road.”
The Bruins hosted the Flyers last year and took them easily in four sets.
But the Flyers are ready for the Bruins and, according to Lewis coach Dan Friend’s statements in a press release, will try to draw from their experience last year against then-No. 1 BYU, where they took the visiting Cougars to five sets.
Polales agreed that, though the Flyers play in a weaker conference than the Bruins, they are ready and will put up a tough fight.
“They don’t get to play many teams from the West Coast,” Polales said. “So when we’re going out there, they’re going to be really excited for it, (they’re) definitely going to bring a challenge.”
Last week’s two wins over Stanford and Pacific have also given the Bruins some momentum early in the season. Freshman quick hitter Thomas Amberg added that this weekend’s matches will be critical in maintaining the progress the Bruins have made.
“Having these two wins will carry on our momentum and really just build it up so we can … bring it back to the (Mountain Pacific Sports Federation),” Amberg said.