Just when the No. 5 UCLA men’s volleyball team thought it had bucked its nasty habit of losing at home, the problem reared its ugly head again Friday night.
After sweeping Lewis at home just two nights earlier, the Bruins (10-9, 8-7 MPSF) suffered a four-set loss to the defending national champion No. 12 UC Irvine Anteaters (10-10, 6-9) in front of 1,406 at Pauley Pavilion, 32-34, 30-23, 30-28, 30-28.
The fourth set saw the Bruins give away a six-point lead, opening the door for the Anteaters to finish the set on an 11-4 run that culminated with a net call against the Bruins to end the match.
After the disappointing loss, coach Al Scates couldn’t make sense of how the Bruins were able to lose the last two sets.
“We hit some balls out that we shouldn’t have and that was the difference right there. Then we netted at game point so a lot of different things happened that shouldn’t have happened,” Scates said.
Redshirt sophomore opposite Jack Polales led the Bruins with 21 kills. Outside hitters senior Garrett Muagututia and redshirt sophomore Jeremy Casebeer also racked up double-digit kill counts with 16 and 11 respectively.
The Bruins were able to neutralize Carson Clark, UC Irvine’s stellar opposite, limiting him to a mere .067 clip, but couldn’t slow down the Anteaters’ duo at outside hitter. Junior Jordan DuFault recorded 20 kills and senior Cole Reinholm had 19.
The Bruins were outblocked for the ninth time this season, a figure that has become a very good indicator of the Bruins’ overall performance.
Muagututia was at a loss for words of what went wrong on the block that night, but mentioned that it comes down to knowing the opponent better.
“I don’t know,” Muagututia said. “I think we just need to know their tendencies more. The coaches give us the scouting report so we’ve just got to know their tendencies and force them into more errors and mistakes.”
With six of their seven conference losses coming in the friendly confines of Pauley Pavilion, the Bruins are still searching for a solution to improve their chances at home. Scates lowered the curtain to compensate for the off-center nature of the court in Pauley Pavilion.
“I don’t think it does a damn thing,” said Scates of the curtain’s effectiveness. “I can’t see any difference in our serving. I’ll just put it up (next match) in case it gets in the way.”
Casebeer said that the Bruins can’t dwell on this most recent debacle at home and have to move forward.
“We just have to come back to practice and stay focused and train hard,” Casebeer said. “We have to come back with more energy and play consistently in our next few matches at home.”
While Scates is still searching for answers at home, he’s excited to get back out on the road.
“Our next league match is on the road, which is good,” Scates said. “I have no doubt we’ll play well on the road.”