The wins just keep coming for UCLA men’s volleyball, but the team could certainly use a break.
In their fourth match in just six days, the top-ranked Bruins (10-0, 6-0 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) showed signs of fatigue but were still able to defeat the No. 12 Cal State Northridge Matadors (7-2, 2-2) in four sets (20-25, 25-23, 27-25, 25-19).
“You play as many matches as we played in such a short amount of time, it’s hard not just physically but emotionally to get yourself to the place where you are gonna be able to give enough energy to win against good teams,” said coach John Speraw. “Fortunately we were able to find it. I don’t know if we came into the gym with it but we were able to recognize how hard we needed to work and we got it going.”
The Bruins were coming off a five-set win over the No. 2 Long Beach State 49ers in which they came back from a 2-0 deficit. After ending the final set Wednesday with such energy, the Bruins’ opening set Friday was a letdown. Sloppy play and a lights-out Matador offense spelled doom for the home team.
That was the only set UCLA would drop.
“When I was on the bench it looked kind of dead out there,” said junior outside hitter Michael Fisher. “When I came in I just wanted to bring as much energy as I could, get guys fired up. We lost that first set and I came in and was just like, ‘Okay, it’s go time.’”
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Fisher entered the match midway through the second set as a substitute for sophomore outside hitter J.T. Hatch. In the final three sets of the night, Fisher totaled four kills and five digs, as the Bruins gained control of the match.
The Matadors couldn’t maintain their torrent hitting, falling from their above-.500 mark to a .270 hitting percentage by the end of the night.
The Bruins got a scare in the third set – at one point going down 25-24 – but they scored three straight behind Fisher’s strong serving and a final kill from sophomore outside hitter Jake Arnitz to take the set and put themselves in prime position with a 2-1 lead.
Arnitz played especially confidently from the back row, contributing a total of 21 kills on the night.
“We went in knowing we have the weekend off,” Arnitz said. “And I think we went in with that mindset … came in real soft. But as the match progressed we just picked it up, the bench picked it up.”
The Bruins were rolling by the time the fourth set came around. The set was highlighted by an 8-point run with freshman setter/hitter Micah Ma’a at the service line.
With the victory – the team’s 10th in 2016 – UCLA is off to its best start since 1998. That team finished with a 28-4 record and won the 17th national championship in program history.
The Bruins will take a weeklong break before traveling to Hawaii for a pair of matches against the Rainbow Warriors on Friday and Saturday.
