Bruins face
inconsistent
Northridge
Up and down Matadors
battle No. 1 volleyball
in 19th UCLA Classic
By Eric Branch
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
The top-ranked UCLA men’s volleyball team realizes the danger in
playing a team that is consistent as a Scotty Thurman jumper. They
can be oh-so-good one night and oh-so, well, awful on another.
That Jekyll and Hyde mentality enters Westwood tonight as No. 8
Cal State Northridge (14-7 overall, 10-5 in Mountain Pacific Sports
Federation) battles the Bruins (20-1, 14-0) in the second game of
the 19th annual UCLA Classic. The Bruins, who have won the event 11
times, will face CSUN at 7 p.m. after the first match of the
tournament between No. 6 Long Beach State (16-7, 11-7) and No. 10
USC (8-9, 5-9) at 5 p.m.
While Northridge appeared two steps away from helpless in an
early season 15-4, 15-9, 15-7 pasting at the hands of UCLA, they
have posted impressive wins over No. 3 Stanford, No. 9 Brigham
Young and Long Beach State since the beating. In addition they
swept the same Ball State team which handed UCLA their only loss of
the season.
"They’re Team Schizophrenic," UCLA head coach Al Scates said.
"You just don’t know what team is going to show up. They looked
terrible when we first played them but they are clearly a much
better team than what we saw. We will have to be ready"
The Matadors recent resumé would indicate they are indeed a
very good team. Led by senior outside hitter Jon Baer, who ranks
ninth in the MPSF in kill average (5.86), Northridge enters
tonight’s match having won nine of their last 11 contests. However,
head coach John Price feels the Matadors have found inconsistency
in victory.
"We’ve been winning but struggling," Price said. "We haven’t
been playing real well but we’re pulling out matches somehow. It’s
been pretty ugly. We’ll play half a game real well and then let the
other team back in it. Then we’ll win it 15-13."
On the other hand, there hasn’t been much doubt about UCLA’s
recent hot streak. The Bruins have reeled off eight-straight
victories since falling to Ball State, sweeping seven of the
contests while compiling a .397 hitting percentage. However, senior
swing hitter Jeff Nygaard, who ranks in the MPSF top-10 in three
categories, sees room for improvement.
"We’re playing well right now but our sideouts are keeping us
from being a great team," Nygaard said. "It’s something we need to
improve on."
* * *
The consolation match on Saturday starts at 4:30 p.m. followed
by the 7:30 championship match. Prime Sports will televise the
championship match live.