On a night that featured a huge crowd, marked the regular season finale and had a great deal of fanfare, something unusual happened.
There were few exceptionally spectacular plays, no nail biting moments, no real surprises – just a solid night of volleyball.
No. 4 UCLA men’s volleyball (23-5, 17-5 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) closed out the season with a four-set victory over No. 6 Pepperdine at Pauley Pavilion (25-18, 21-25, 25-16, 25-23).
Along with the win, it was a special night. A few dozen UCLA volleyball alumni from the 1976, 1996 and 2006 national champion squads were at the match and participated in a brief ceremony on the court following the second set.
The opponent on the other side of the net had a hint of familiarity for the 1976 team, as the UCLA team from 40 years ago defeated Pepperdine in its championship match. As for the 2016 squad, it played very much like a team fighting for a championship.
Sophomore outside hitter Jake Arnitz led the way with 18 kills on a .483 hitting percentage. As a team, the Bruins hit .420 while limiting the Waves to only a .223 mark.
In the Bruins’ straight-set win over the Waves back in February, Pepperdine was still able to stuff 11 blocks. Saturday’s match, however, was far different, as the visitors were only able to come up with 2.5 blocks on the night.
“We did some great things,” said coach John Speraw. “Our ball control was pretty good, with some exceptions. It felt like we were playing some pretty good volleyball.”
The setting duo of junior Hagen Smith and freshman Micah Ma’a combined for 12 kills and 50 assists. And as a whole, the Bruins only had 13 hitting errors on the night.
Pepperdine’s only real offensive threat was redshirt senior opposite Matt Tarantino. Sophomore outside hitter Colby Harriman – usually an offensive leader for the Waves – was limited to nine kills on a .080 hitting percentage.
Harriman might have been hampered by a hand injury that was suffered in the second set on an attempted block. The injury was not significant enough for Harriman to leave the match but he remained in visible discomfort for the rest of the set.
A young UCLA team wrapped up its regular season with an impressive 23-5 record – a vast improvement from last year’s 13-14 mark. Despite the Bruins’ inexperience, many freshmen and sophomores have stepped up to lead the team to a great finish to the regular season.
“I think my first season here went well,” Ma’a said. “This team has a great bond so on and off the court, it was great.”
UCLA jumped up to No. 2 in the conference standings, winning tiebreakers over Stanford and Long Beach State on the final night of regular season play. The Bruins currently sit on a two-match winning streak entering the playoffs and will host an MPSF quarterfinal match against Hawai’i on April 16.
“It’s nice to finish strong after the two loses to BYU,” Smith said. “We know that we’re going to grow through everything that’s happened this season. Now we’re going to go on to the next one and play as hard as we can.”
