UCLA men’s volleyball coach John Speraw said his team knew that “it won’t be like this every night” after the Bruins trounced the visiting British Columbia Thunderbirds in their season-opening exhibition match. But none of the players seemed to be keen to that knowledge.
No. 5 UCLA (1-0) delivered just as dominant a performance Tuesday afternoon in Fairfax, Virginia, winning in straight sets over No. 14 George Mason (0-1) 25-23, 25-12, 25-20.
The Bruins entered the regular season with a promising young corp who did not fail to impress.
Freshman setter Micah Ma’a posted 12 assists to go along with his five kills, while junior setter Hagen Smith heaped on 17 assists of his own.
“I think (the team’s success) starts with our passing,” said junior middle blocker Mitch Stahl. “Hagen and Micah did a really good job of dishing up the ball to the hitters, and all of our hitters hit with a lot of rage. We have a lot of versatility and when you have that, it’s tough to defend, especially when you pass well.”
Sophomore outside hitter JT Hatch had a team-leading 11 kills with a .529 hitting percentage, sophomore outside hitter Jake Arnitz had eight kills at .462 and Stahl had seven kills with an impressive .700 clip. As a whole the team hit .538, surpassing the .518 mark set during the British Columbia match.
“I thought everyone played a really good game,” Hatch said. “George Mason is a really good team but our passing was really good today, so that led to a high kill percentage for us.”
Across the net, the Patriots had a rather lackluster start to their season. Outside hitter Christian Malias swung well with a game-leading 12 kills, but other than Malias, nothing much else materialized. Middle blockers Garrett Kollar and Dom Edgley had four and two kills, respectively, while outside hitter Radoslav Popov added two of his own.
UCLA’s long-distance traveling was assumed to factor into the team’s performance, with just two days between Sunday’s exhibition home game and Tuesday’s away game in Virginia, but Speraw said it wasn’t as big of a deal as it seemed initially.
“I’m sure it affected the team but it didn’t affect our performance at all,” Speraw said. “I thought we did a great job of maintaining our focus even though we’re in a novel experience and we’re handling it professionally and with a lot of maturity.”
