The UCLA men’s volleyball team may not have dominated
their opponent, but at least they found a way to win.
Though they were facing a Stanford team (3-10, 2-7 MPSF) ranked
11th in the league, the Bruins’ victory was never assured, as
the Cardinal stayed with UCLA for most of the match.
With the 3-1 win, 30-28, 22-30, 30-21, 30-28, the Bruins (8-6,
3-4) move up to eighth in the league standings, and have a chance
to move up as many as two more spots given a win tonight over
Pacific in the last match of their five-match home stand.
But early in the match, UCLA failed to play with intensity and
needed to rally together to pull out the win, which is something
the team has had to do often this season.
“We didn’t win the first game well, and didn’t
come out fired up at all in the second game,” redshirt senior
outside hitter Damien Scott said. “It does seem to be a
constant thing that is happening, where we lose and then have to
come back with more energy and hope to pull it off.”
The Bruins never led by more than three points in Game 1, and
the game was tied as late as 26-26. In Game 2, UCLA hit only .211
and let the Cardinal swing at a .440 clip.
Rebounding from a lackluster Game 2 performance, the Bruins came
out with a vengeance in Game 3, determined to get the win. The
team’s intensity translated into a dominating win.
Redshirt junior Paul George stepped up for the Bruins in Game 3,
hitting .778 with seven kills, after only hitting .118 through the
first two games.
The Bruins’ control of the match failed to carry over into
Game 4, as both teams slugged it out for every point. The teams
were tied at every point from 3-3 to 9-9, and no team led by more
than two until Stanford took a 15-18 lead.
Unwilling to let a second game slip away to the Cardinal, the
Bruins rebounded from a 20-24 deficit, going on a 10-4 run to end
the match.
“We knew we didn’t want to play another game, and we
shouldn’t have to play another game against Stanford. So we
just picked up the intensity and got the win,” Scott
said.
Several players came up big for the Bruins in the match, as UCLA
registered 74 kills (.318) and 48 digs. George finished with 17
kills, while senior opposite David Russell and junior opposite
Steve Klosterman added 14 and 13 kills, respectively.
But the player of the game was Scott, who slammed 17 kills and
got 14 digs after regaining the starting position he had lost a
couple weeks ago.
“Damien Scott had great practices this week, and I was
really happy with the way he played against Stanford,” UCLA
coach Al Scates said. “He put away a ball late in the match
that was crucial, and had a lot of digs. He competed hard for the
starting spot, and has really turned around his play this
week.”
Another high point for the Bruins was the return of redshirt
freshman Jamie Diefenbach, who has been out for a month after
arthroscopic surgery on his knee, and was not expected to play this
soon. Diefenbach played two games, finding four kills and three
blocks.
“He had three blocks in a very short period of time, which
would make him the leading blocker for the team on his first night
back,” Scates said. “I didn’t want him to play
the whole match, but I will be playing him more
(tonight).”
Despite their ultimate success, the Bruins were unable to
execute their plan to limit Stanford’s Ben Reddy. Reddy leads
the Cardinal with 4.43 kills per game, which is the fourth highest
mark in the league. Reddy had 27 kills (.500) for Stanford, leading
them to a .358 hitting percentage.
“It was nice to be able to allow their best player to go
off on us, and still beat the team,” Scates said. “We
had two blockers on him, but he was finding holes in the block.
They hit for a higher average than we did and blocked more balls
than us, but we still won. That’s pretty unusual.”
The Bruins hope to continue their momentum tonight against the
Tigers at 7 p.m.