John Speraw didn’t yell. He didn’t gesture. He didn’t even stand.
The UCLA men’s volleyball coach sat calmly on the sideline, tapping his leather shoes on the polished hardwood of Pauley Pavilion.
There was little Speraw could do Tuesday night as No. 9 UCLA (4-3, MPSF 0-3) men’s volleyball fell to No. 5 Pepperdine (8-1, MPSF 4-1) 3-0 in a match that exposed the Bruins’ inexperience and failure to execute.
“At the end of the day, we didn’t pass, we didn’t dig, we didn’t set very well, we didn’t attack the ball very well,” Speraw said. “We got beat by a team that’s better at the skills than we were.”
It was ugly from the onset for UCLA as Pepperdine handed the Bruins a crushing 25-10 first-set loss. Many of the Bruins’ hitters registered negative hitting percentages and the team as a whole suffered -.069 for the opening period.
“We got our butts handed to us. Rightfully so. We weren’t playing very well,” said sophomore middle blocker Mitch Stahl. “We had to bring it together, not worry about our egos getting in the way.”
The Bruins did manage to bring it together over the course of the next two sets, dropping the contests by smaller margins of 25-20 and 25-23. While service errors and an inability to side-out sunk UCLA in the first set, junior setter Steve O’Dell’s serving buoyed the Bruins in the second and third, spurring their only offensive runs of the night.
Methodical applause served as the soundtrack to the Bruins’ attempted comeback. As O’Dell stepped up to the service line, his teammates began to clap slowly, building as the setter ran towards the line and tossed the ball for his serve. As O’Dell maintained his service for four straight points, all of Pauley joined in.
“We wanted it. We gave it our all. No doubt about that,” O’Dell said. “We just weren’t good enough yet. But we’re going to get there.”
O’Dell would return to serve late in the third set, throwing down an ace to pull the Bruins within two points of the Waves with a score of 22-20. O’Dell’s momentary effort wasn’t enough to erase the team’s trespasses, as the Waves went on to claim the set.
“Sometimes when you come to UCLA, you think you just get to win,” Speraw said. “You don’t just get to win. They need to learn how hard they need to work.”