For a top-10 team, wins have proven to be elusive for the UCLA men’s volleyball team as of late. That changed, at least temporarily, Saturday evening.
After dropping a five-set thriller to No. 7 UC Irvine (11-5, 8-4 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) the night prior, No. 6 UCLA (11-7, 8-6) defeated unranked UC San Diego (5-11, 2-9) in four sets.
In Irvine, the Bruins dropped the first two sets but rallied to take the following two. However, after going mostly point-for-point in the fifth set, the Anteaters took the final set 17-15.
Bruin Junior opposite Christian Hessenauer came off the bench to notch a season-high 16 kills, while junior outside hitter Jake Arnitz continued his return from injury following with 13 kills of his own.
Saturday saw similar point totals but a different result.
In UCLA’s four-set win, Hessenauer and Arnitz led the team in kills with 15 and 12 respectively.
“We were hungry, we really wanted a win,” Hessenauer said. “We knew UCSD has not been the team they were in the past, they’ve played well this season, so we knew coming in it would be a battle … but we were very ready to compete.”
Sophomore outside hitter Dylan Missry came in third with 11 kills and hit a career-best four aces.
As a team, the Bruins hit for .475 on the night and no Bruin swung for a percentage under .333.
A notable absence from the starting lineup Saturday, other than injured senior middle blocker Mitch Stahl, was senior setter/opposite Hagen Smith – a former staple of the 6-2 offense.
With Smith sidelined, UCLA transitioned into a 5-1 offense allowing both Hessenauer and Missry to play alongside Arnitz.
“People have asked me a lot of questions about the 6-2 and I’ve always said that I don’t really have a strong feeling over one or the other but we just need to get the best offensive production that we can,” said coach John Speraw. “Hagen hasn’t really hit real well for about a month now, so we needed more offense, and I was happy to see (Hessenauer) come in and have a great weekend.”
The month of February has not been kind to UCLA. The Bruins have played eight games and have lost six of them. Even last season, in which they had a relatively easier schedule, the Bruins still only went 5-3.
Despite the rough stretch, many of the players can be seen laughing and having fun out on the court.
“A lot of us, sometimes, get frustrated,” said sophomore libero Davis Gillett. “It’s really whether or not we choose to have fun or to dwell on (the losses). So I think the mentality for everyone here is to go out there and have fun, we have this rough stretch but we have to keep going.”