After taking down the No. 2 team in the nation ““ the Cal State Northridge Matadors ““ the Bruins found themselves in a favorable position, building momentum with a road win over an elite squad.
“We needed that first road win to start our momentum … it’s great for us to come away with a sweep against a really good team,” senior setter Kevin Ker said after Friday’s match.
Dylan Bowermaster who started at outside hitter Friday night said that the victory against CSUN gave the Bruins some much-needed confidence.
“The biggest impact was that it gave us some confidence to know that we can go out and beat the top-tier teams,” the redshirt junior said. “We know that we’re as good as those teams, in terms of skill level, but we hadn’t gotten a big win like that in a while. So I think that we can look back on that win where we destroyed Northridge and know that we can compete with any team in the league.”
And despite what redshirt sophomore quick hitter Wes Dunlap described as a low-energy warm-up, the Bruins came out firing from very early in the first set, outhitting CSUN .385 to .052.
Dunlap explained the Bruins’ simple solution to the energy complex.
“It usually starts with a couple guys getting really fired up and that just makes everybody focus a lot harder,” Dunlap said.
With the win, the Bruins jumped up four spots to No. 6 in the AVCA rankings. What does that mean for the Bruins?
“It shows that when we’re serving and blocking well, we can score 50 percent of the time on our serve, which is pretty unheard of,” Dunlap said. “I have to take the errors and have them keep serving hard.”
Practice Makes Perfect
With no mid-week game this week, the Bruins have an entire week of practice to prepare for their two consecutive nights against BYU. The Bruins hope that the extra practice time will aid their preparation for the Cougars.
“This will give us time to work on some things individually and give us a lot of time to prepare for BYU,” Bowermaster said. “We’ll do some video work to learn their offense and set up our defense.”
The Bruins lost to BYU in five sets earlier this month in the UCSB Collegiate tournament.
“We missed a lot of serves in that (match) so we just need to focus and cut down on our mental mistakes,” Dunlap said.
Coach Al Scates said that practice would be heavy in conditioning early in the week and tail off as they get closer to the weekend and that a few more plays would be inserted on the offensive side of the ball.
Friendly Competition
The Bruins shifted their lineup around in the win against CSUN, inserting Bowermaster at outside hitter in place of redshirt sophomore Jeremy Casebeer and Dunlap at quick hitter in place of sophomore Nick Vogel. Despite the change, both players know that nothing is permanent.
“I’m just going to continue playing as hard as I can and hopefully we continue to play well as a team,” Dunlap said. “This program is result-driven, so whoever is producing is going to be playing.”
Bowermaster is the latest player to emerge from the carousel at the second outside hitter position where Scates has been looking for consistent play.
“We’ve got a bunch of guys that are hungry for that position (outside hitter), and whoever works the hardest and gets wins is usually going to be the starter,” Bowermaster said. “So if we keep winning, I’ll hopefully keep that spot. If not, we’ve got some other guys right behind me.”
Scates added he is unsure of this weekend’s starting lineup.
Injury Update
Sophomore setter Kyle Caldwell who started the season opener against USC on Jan. 13 has been sidelined with an ankle injury since and didn’t make the trip to Northridge. Caldwell practiced Monday and looked to be close to full strength.