The resistance was steadily increasing as the match went on: The first set was a walkover, the second was a battle and the third was a war.
The fourth set turned out to be nonexistent, as the No. 3 UCLA men’s volleyball team (6-1, 3-0 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) managed to fight back from an eight-point third set deficit and kill off No. 8 UC Santa Barbara (3-1, 2-1) in straight sets.
The Bruins might as well have been playing against themselves in the first set; they won all 13 points on UCSB’s serve, eventually taking the frame 25-12. Coach John Speraw saw the home-court advantage as a major contributor to the early start.
“People come into Pauley Pavilion and it’s a tough place to play. They came in and had a bunch of hitting errors,” Speraw said. “When you play here, if you’re not used to (the atmosphere) then you see those things happen. They weren’t as sharp as they would be otherwise, and it worked to our advantage.”
Things weren’t going to get any easier. The Gauchos settled down in the second set, going toe to toe with the Bruins until the home team ultimately pulled away again to win the set 25-22.
“No team in this league is going to play the way they did in the first set two times in a row,” said senior middle blocker Spencer Rowe. “We knew they were going to come out harder in the second, so we had to amp our focus up even more.”
The tables weren’t just turned in the third set, they were completely flipped. It was the Bruins that came out sluggish, spotting the Gauchos a massive 14-6 lead. The Bruins could have easily conceded the frame and turned their sights toward taking the fourth set, but then the deficit began to dwindle little by little.
“We’ve had that mistake in the past where we kind of ease up, but not this time,” said redshirt sophomore middle blocker Trent Kersten. “We’re a one-point team … I’m sure you constantly hear it all the time but that’s what it is – one point at a time, 100 percent every point.”
As the Bruins started racking up points, faces around the UCSB camp began to grow weary. The comeback was far from inevitable, but both teams could feel it coming.
“We got a real nice serving run from Spencer that really put us back in that set. … We started playing some good volleyball and we got a little bit of help. I think we started feeling like we could steal that set and at the end we did,” Speraw said. “It was nice to see us have that confidence to come back when we’re down big like that, it could be beneficial for us later in the season.”
The Bruins are now sitting at 3-0 in the conference with two wins against top-10 teams. But just like what happened in this match, things figure to only get harder as the Bruins face two-time defending NCAA champion UC Irvine twice next week.
“We have a really challenging first six matches of the season with having to play Stanford, Santa Barbara and Irvine twice,” Speraw said. “For us to be 3-0 at this point, I’m quite pleased.”