Though they may not be atop the rankings anymore, the UC Irvine men’s volleyball team is still one to be reckoned with.
The No. 5 Bruins (10-8, 8-6 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) are not underestimating the defending NCAA champion No. 12 Anteaters (9-10, 5-9) who will visit Pauley Pavilion tonight.
“Irvine’s a huge game for us,” sophomore quick hitter Thomas Amberg said. “They’re low in the conference right now, but we know they’re a great team in the past, and they’re a great team this year as well.”
Assistant coach Brian Rofer agrees that the Anteater’s record does not tell the whole story. Five of their nine MPSF losses have come in five sets, “so they’re in there with all the teams,” Rofer said.
UCI is coming off a four-set loss to UC Santa Barbara, but the team beat the Bruins three times last season, including a 3-1 win in the 2009 MPSF Quarterfinals. Redshirt sophomore opposite Jack Polales is looking to avenge that loss.
“Irvine was seeming to be a little down this year, and they’ve pulled it together a lot recently, and they’re playing really good volleyball,” Polales said. “Not to mention they knocked us out of the playoffs last year, so we all want revenge for that, so we’re all going to come out fired up (tonight).”
The Bruins swept Lewis Wednesday night, out-hitting and out-blocking the Flyers after focusing on the basics in practice. Rofer said this will continue, and that it is important to constantly work on fundamentals.
“We’ll keep working on bringing our offense faster,” Rofer said. “Our blocking has to be much more consistent, our digging is going to get better. But things like covering the hitter, we were doing that really well, then we watched the tape from the last matches, it’s nonexistent, so it’s something that we stress, too.”
Rofer is confident that the work will pay off.
“We do our job, and our team keeps responding like they have I think we’ll be really good in April, when we have to be,” Rofer said.
Rofer and coach Al Scates said the Bruins will have to watch for UCI sophomore opposite Carson Clark, who is third in the MPSF in kills per game with 5.08, and second in service aces per game with .42 as of March 1.
As a team, the Anteaters rank third in the MPSF in hitting percentage with a .325 clip, and second in service aces.
Rofer says that the Anteaters, led by coach John Speraw, a former UCLA player, will bring a little extra to Pauley on Friday.
“With coach Speraw there, he wants to win, he wants to beat us. Same thing with our guys,” Rofer said. “They’re the defending national champions, you always want to beat them. Everyone wants to beat the Bruins. Doesn’t matter if we’re playing well or playing poorly, if we’re having a great year or a bad year, they still want to beat us.”