Men’s volleyball capitalizes on fast start in sweep of UCI

Whatever the Bruins are doing immediately before every game, they should keep doing it. For the second game in a row, the No. 1 UCLA men’s volleyball team (7-1, 4-0 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) was nearly flawless in the first set, this time blowing away No. 8 UC Irvine (5-5, 2-4) 25-14 on its way to a straight-set victory.

“We’re doing a real nice job of getting ourselves prepared to compete, some teams don’t do that very well,” said coach John Speraw. “Some teams take a while to get going every match and that has not been our problem.”

What makes these fast starts surprising is that they have been so uncharacteristic of past UCLA teams. Just a year ago it was typical to watch the Bruins lose the first set and have to climb back into the match.

“That was one of our weaknesses last year, we didn’t start very well every single game and I think that’s something we’ve clearly improved on this year” said senior outside hitter Gonzalo Quiroga. “Most of our players are seniors. … We all know that it’s now or never so we’re going all out every time we play.”

This game was almost an exact replay of the Bruins’ last match against UCSB: UCLA breezed through the first set, but required a big rally to close out the match in the third set.

“I think the best thing about our team is our resilience and our ability to come back,” said redshirt junior setter Michael Beals. “We go back to basics (when we’re down); our coaches are really good at scheming and our competition in the gym at practice helps us compete at a high level every day.”’

Beals made a surprise start at setter, with regular starter sophomore Steve O’Dell still recovering from a nagging foot injury. He wasn’t the only new face in the lineup, however, as freshman outside hitter Michael Fisher made his first start of the regular season. While the move raised some eyebrows when the lineups were initially announced, Fisher’s inclusion paid immediate dividends as his first two serves went for aces. He eventually finished with 10 kills and 3 aces.

“Fisher’s been part of the group of young freshman that we’ve been looking at all year. … He had a great week of practice and deserved the opportunity to get a look and obviously made the most of it,” Speraw said. “Even though our freshmen don’t always get the opportunity to start over some of our senior leaders, they’re guys that are going to have bright futures with this program and are an important part of this team.”

The Bruins are now 4-0 in conference play and looking well worthy of their new No. 1 ranking after sweeping the eighth-ranked Anteaters. Speraw said before the year that each season is like a “race to see who can improve the most,” and at the moment the Bruins seem to be clearly winning that race. Nevertheless, the race is still far from over.

“It’s a long season … we’re still so far from where we need to be,” Speraw said. “There’s still so much more we can do, I see tons of stuff we can improve on.”