In the middle of hard-fought wins and tough losses, it’s
nice for a team to get the occasional easy victory.
Lewis University (5-10) came into Pauley Pavilion last night
with a four-match losing streak that was promptly extended to five
matches by the UCLA men’s volleyball team.
The No. 9 Bruins (12-9) swept the Flyers 30-22, 30-25, 30-18 in
only 77 minutes to give UCLA its second non-conference win in as
many days after beating Loyola-Chicago on Tuesday.
The recent wins swung momentum back in the Bruins’ favor
after they were swept in three straight matches.
“After playing a real tough week last week, we really
needed an easy game before we play at Hawai’i on
Friday,” senior Nick Scheftic said. “We needed these
wins to boost our confidence, and our spirits are high right
now.”
The key factor in the Bruin victory was Scheftic’s strong
play ““ he finished with a career-high 19 kills on only 27
swings. The 6-foot-11-inch quick hitter led the team with a .630
hitting percentage and four total blocks.
“Lewis had two guys in front of him, but Scheftic had good
vision and was finding little holes between the block,” UCLA
coach Al Scates said. “He is also serving and blocking
better, and has become a better overall player lately. It took him
a long time to get to where he is, and now he’s pretty
good.”
With Scheftic slamming almost all of his attempts for kills, the
UCLA offense was able to open up as more defenders committed to
blocking him.
Freshman setter Matt Wade set the Bruins to a .409 hitting
percentage, far better than their .306 season average, by taking
advantage of the extra attention paid to Scheftic.
“Scheftic was a huge part of the win,” Wade said.
“He was just hitting the ball over them and around them, and
they couldn’t even stop him by double-committing on him. That
really gave me a chance to move the ball around to the outside a
lot more.”
Another major contributor for the Bruins was senior Paul George,
who tallied four of the Bruins’ seven aces and only had one
service error.
George had often been a factor in the Bruins’ serving
woes, as he leads the team with 80 total service errors for the
season, but last night’s powerful serving was a welcome
improvement.
“Our serving was very good, and Paul especially made a
difference,” Scheftic said.
“He usually comes out with several errors a night, but he
is a key player that we need to be making serves. He helped our
team out a lot with his strong serving.”
Facing an opposing team of 12 freshmen and one sophomore, the
Bruins had little difficulty in quickly overcoming the Flyers.
In Game 1, Scheftic smashed eight kills in 10 swings (.800),
leading UCLA to a .556 hitting percentage. The Bruins held Lewis to
a .000 percentage in Game 2, as the Flyers hit nine errors and nine
kills.
The Bruins faced their first deficit of the match in Game 3 when
the Flyers jumped out to a 3-0 lead, but a 7-1 run quickly put the
Bruins back in control for good. UCLA captured the match on the
last of Scheftic’s 19 kills.
For the match, senior David Russell chipped in five kills on an
error-free 10 swings and sophomore Eric Chaghouri got 12 digs, one
off his career record set on Tuesday.
“Lewis is not the greatest team, but it’s nice to
get our second win in a row before we go to Hawai’i,”
Wade said. “Hopefully these wins help us to get back into the
rhythm we were in earlier this year.”