Volleyball spears Aztecs, Tritons on the road
UCLA runs league
record to 18-0 with San Diego victories
By Eric Branch
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
SAN DIEGO — A recipe for a blowout …
Pick a team which has won 11 straight matches. Pit them against
a team which has lost six straight matches. Stir deliberately.
If everything is prepared correctly, the finished product should
look strikingly similar to the 15-9, 15-7, 15-4 beating the
top-ranked UCLA men’s volleyball team pasted on slumping
14th-ranked San Diego State Friday night in Peterson Gym.
"We hit over .300 points higher than they did," UCLA head coach
Al Scates said. "I don’t know if we had done that to another team
this season. To outhit someone this badly, that’s pretty
dominating."
The domination was complete, as the Bruins also outblocked the
Aztecs 15-3. Five UCLA hitters hit over .500 on the night. Quick
hitter Jeff Nygaard led the charge, posting 22 kills (.677 hitting
percentage) while fellow quick hitter John Speraw had 12 kills
(.800). The onslaught left the Aztecs (9-14 overall, 6-12 Mountain
Pacific Sports Federation) thoroughly frustrated.
"I saw (SDSU head coach) Jack Henn quoted in the paper and he
seemed a little frustrated," Scates said. "He said that during the
match, he told his team to just watch UCLA play and see how it’s
done. He’s always been pretty blunt."
* * *
In college volleyball’s version of the Christians and the lions,
the Bruins met Mountain Pacific Sports Federation cellar dweller UC
San Diego Saturday night.
The beleaguered Tritons entered the match with a two-year
conference record of 1-35 while UCLA owns a 36-0 record over the
same span. Predictably, the Bruins cruised to a 15-2, 15-12, 12-15,
15-4 victory.
The third-game setback occurred with UCLA’s second team in the
match, a group which hadn’t played together in a regular season
match in over a month.
"The second team was a little stale," Scates said. "They really
haven’t played in a while, and it shows."
Swing hitter Brian Wells and setter Aaron Boone highlighted the
second teamers. Wells posted 12 kills and a .500 hitting
percentage, while Boone managed six kills, three digs and three
blocks. Opposite Matt Noonan blasted a team-high 14 kills, which
also included eight errors.
"Noonan was hitting the hell out of the ball, but it kept going
long," Scates said. "Their block was so small that our hitters
weren’t used to it. They kept hitting these high, flat shots
because they’re used to playing against guys in practice who can
get up to 11 feet."
The Tritons now stand 0-17 in the conference and 1-21 overall.
The Bruins, with one MPSF match remaining (UC Irvine) before the
conference playoffs at Pauley Pavilion this coming weekend,
improved to 25-1 overall, 18-0 in the league.