Collegiate golf’s postseason presents an opportunity start with a clean slate.
UCLA men’s golf coach Derek Freeman said, “The best part about the postseason is anything prior to now doesn’t count, it doesn’t mean anything.”
And as his team begins postseason play today at the Pac-10 Championships in Tempe, Ariz., the No. 4 Bruins are looking to forget their regular season. UCLA is limping into the postseason after taking a fifth place finish and a second place finish against weak fields of teams in their last two tournaments.
They have, however, shown that they have the ability to compete against the best teams after taking home two trophies earlier in the year.
The tournament will be held at Arizona State’s Karsten Golf Course, a course that should be very familiar to the Bruins as well as their competition as each Pac-10 team played in the ASU Thunderbird Invitational earlier this month. Freeman welcomes the opportunity to return to a course where the Bruins placed second to Washington.
Playing at an elevation of 4,551 feet may have hindered the Bruins’ serving game, as the ball tends to float deeper than at sea level. They committed 24 service errors to BYU’s 18.
“That’s definitely an advantage for them so we made a few more service errors than usual and it’s something that they’re used to,” sophomore quick hitter Nick Vogel said.
Vogel also mentioned the Cougars’ fan support as being exceptionally strong, giving them an edge.
Playing his last match in a Bruin uniform, Garrett Muagututia led the Bruins with 16 kills, while sophomore opposite Jack Polales and Vogel added 14 and 13, respectively. The Cougars, who came into Saturday night’s match leading the conference in blocks, won the blocking battle again with 12 total blocks, besting the Bruins by three.
“They’re a great blocking team but we had been working on attacking the block more and trying to make them make the errors,” Vogel said. “It gets into your head getting blocked, but we were giving it right back to them.”
Scates, who has now completed 48 years of coaching the Bruins, knows by now that hitting percentage and total blocks are usually good indicators of which team will come out on top. The Cougars hit for a .364 clip and held the Bruins to .307 on the night.
“Basically we had to outhit them and outblock them and we didn’t do either one of those,” Scates said. “That was the difference.”
Injuries and eligibility issues have plagued the Bruins all year, and Scates was missing the services of starting outside hitter Jeremy Casebeer, as well as former setter Kyle Caldwell, who has not played since fall quarter because of academic ineligibility.
“We didn’t have a setter who was a big blocker that was ready to set all the way around,” Scates said. “Caldwell not being available is a definite factor because we could have used him.”
Overall, Scates was pleased with his team’s effort but acknowledged that BYU was just too strong.
“All in all, it was a good effort but I think BYU was favored to win tonight and they did.”
All-MPSF Accolades
Senior captain Garrett Muagututia was named to the All-MPSF Second Team last week. This is Muagututia’s third straight second-team honor.