Expectations are nothing new to the UCLA men’s volleyball program ““ that tends to happen when a team has 19 national titles under its belt.
But this year, the Bruins are coming into the season with a little bit of unexpected news: they’re the underdogs.
“We’re ranked ninth right now in the preseason polls,” coach Al Scates said.
“I don’t expect us to be anywhere lower than fourth by the end of the season.”
The Bruins are looking strong at the start of the season, with 15 returning players from last season and two highly touted freshmen outside hitters ““ seven-footer Robart Page out of New York, who was one of the top high school prospects last year, and Gonzalo Quiroga from Argentina, who helped lead the Argentinean national youth volleyball team to a silver medal in the 2010 Youth Olympic Games.
“Both Page and Quiroga are excellent players,” Scates said. “Quiroga has already made a major impact on his country while Page, who just underwent a major growth spurt, has the potential to make a national team one day.”
Out of the 15 returners, the Bruins are bringing back four starters: redshirt junior opposite hitter Jack Polales, junior quick hitter Nick Vogel, junior quick hitter Thomas Amberg and senior libero Tom Hastings.
Junior Kyle Caldwell, who saw extensive time setting last season behind then-senior Kevin Ker, will be counted on to come in and hold down the setting position this season.
“We have a lot of returning players who have seen court time over the years,” Polales said.
“We also have the two standout freshmen coming in as well so we should do really well this year.”
The quest for another national title will not be an easy one for UCLA, as it has already seen two of its starters, Amberg and Caldwell, go down to early-season injuries.
Nevertheless, the Bruins are prepared to start the season with no reservations.
“The great thing about UCLA is we have 20 kids on our team and whenever someone goes down we’ve got another guy with a lot of talent ready to step in,” Polales said.
“So when one of our starters goes down, it hurts and we’ll always miss them, but we have other guys who are chomping at the bit to get out there and perform.”
Both Amberg and Caldwell were injured in freak incidents when they went up for blocks and came down with hand injuries.
Amberg’s injury occurred when a volleyball pushed back one of his fingers on his left hand to the point where the webbing between them split, leading to numerous stitches.
“In my 49 years of coaching, I have never seen anything like that,” Scates said of the injury.
“It was one of the strangest things that could happen, but he’s healing and hopefully we’ll get him and Caldwell back before the 19th.”
Why the 19th?
That’s the day UCLA starts its conference play against No. 12 Cal State Northridge, No. 3 Pepperdine and the No. 1 team in the nation ““ not to mention UCLA’s archrival ““ USC, all within ten days.
“A big thing we talked about this year is winning our league,” Vogel said.
“The West Coast has all of the power schools, so it’s the most competitive league in the nation.”
UCLA’s conference, the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, includes all of the aforementioned powerhouses, as well as No. 2 UC Irvine and No. 4 Stanford, among others.
If UCLA can win its conference, it will get an automatic bid in the four-team NCAA tournament.
If not, the men’s volleyball team will have to enter a tournament for the one remaining at-large bid, something that they think they can avoid.
“I think we have one of the most talented teams I have ever coached,” Scates said.
“We will play USC and Pepperdine in the next few weeks so that will be a good test for us.
Then after that we should get all of our starters back and hopefully we’ll be one of the best teams in the nation.”