Last week’s matches showed marked improvement in two areas of UCLA men’s volleyball’s game – running the bic and serving – but coach John Speraw said that both skills still require more training.
No. 2 UCLA (4-1, 2-0 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) will face Cal Baptist (2-3, 1-1 MPSF) Wednesday evening. The Lancers are unranked, but received votes to be ranked in the top 15 in the most recent American Volleyball Coaches Association poll.
Senior middle blocker Mitch Stahl said that sweeping both No. 6 UC Irvine and UC San Diego was encouraging after a loss to No. 1 Ohio State the previous week.
“We came back here and played against Irvine and played really well against them,” Stahl said. “We know that it’s still early in the season where we have a lot of room to improve, but we’re making those improvements and we’re still able to win matches.”
Freshman middle blocker Daenan Gyimah led the Bruins with 14 errorless kills to post a match-high .737 hitting percentage against UC Irvine, good for national freshman of the week honors from Off the Block. Sophomore setter/opposite Micah Ma’a also stood out with 1.0 aces and 6.3 assists per set in last weeks matches, along with hitting .625. Ma’a was named the AVCA national player of the week.
Last week, Cal Baptist upset No. 13 Cal State Northridge but then fell to No. 3 Long Beach. The Lancers played the Bruins twice last year, with UCLA winning in straight sets on both occasions.
Speraw said that the team has spent most of its video time focusing on what the Bruins can improve because it’s still so early in the season.
“At this time of year when you haven’t seen anybody, there’s this balance of how much time do I spend on an opponent I haven’t seen yet versus how do we make sure what we’re doing on our side of the net is improving,” Speraw said.
Increased serving efficiency has been a focus for improvement throughout the early season and remains important to the Bruins even after two matches with better serving last week.
“We did a specific drill at the end that really focused on that, so that’s definitely a big focus for us,” Stahl said. “I think it’s working. I know that I’m serving better myself, Micah’s serving better and we’re scoring more from our float serves.”
The bic, a fast back row set, has also been an area of emphasis in UCLA’s practices. Speraw said that he expects the Bruins will be working on the set for a large portion of the season.
“Last week on Friday we were spending a lot of time on the bic because that didn’t work very well against Irvine. I thought it was better against San Diego, but that’s still an emphasis for us and it will be for quite some time,” Speraw said. “I think it’s probably one of the more complex connections that we require from our setters, so I think it requires more training.”
Senior setter/opposite Hagen Smith said that a reason the bic can be so difficult is that it changes based on the setter’s location.
“The bic is a certain distance from the setter and depending on where the setter is on the court, you may have to call (for) a different set,” Smith said.
Speraw said that the team has the right hitting and setting personnel to run a bic at a high level, so it’ll be worth the time investment.