Spikers hope to pass by Hawaii with flying colors
Squad to face No. 1 Rainbows at home
By Ruben Gutierrez
Daily Bruin Staff
The eyes of the collegiate volleyball world will be on the No. 3
Bruins tonight as they travel to take on No. 1 Hawaii in a crucial
Mountain Pacific Sports Federation match, then meet again tomorrow
evening in a nonconference contest.
If the most likely postseason scenarios pan out, the victor of
tonight’s match will gain home-court advantage in the MPSF
playoffs. With the two squads favored to meet each other in the
MPSF championship match next month, a victory here may prove to be
the key to postseason success.
"This is for the league seeding," UCLA head coach Al Scates
said. "What it amounts to is this: If we beat Hawaii, then go
undefeated the rest of the way, they have to come here to get out
of the league and go on to the NCAA finals. If we lose, then we
have to go there. I would think it’s going to be easier to beat
them here than there."
The Rainbows (12-0 overall, 8-0 MPSF) are already responsible
for one UCLA loss. On Jan. 26, Hawaii defeated UCLA (11-2, 8-1) in
a five-set barnburner, when the Bruins were ranked second. The
Rainbows drew a home crowd of nearly 10,000 for that match, then
duplicated that figure when they hosted No. 2 Long Beach State.
Scates described the crowd as the loudest he’s seen in his 34 years
of coaching and expects nothing less this time around.
"It’s fun to play in front of a large crowd," Scates said. "We
play in Pauley or the Wooden Center and get 400 or 500 so it’s
great to play in front of 10 thousand people. You can feel it in
the crowd; it’s electricity."
Maybe the extra juice the crowd provides can help UCLA shut down
Rainbow opposite hitter Yuval Katz. Katz, a member of the Israeli
national team, is currently the top attacker in the nation with
nearly eight kills per game. Hawaii is no one-man ensemble,
however, and hits at a .372 clip as a team. To put the icing on the
cake, sets to this well-balanced club are delivered by the current
national leader in assists per game with over 20, Erik Pichel.
"They’ve got the best hitter in collegiate volleyball in Yuval
Katz," Scates said. "We have to take out one of their supplementary
hitters like (Aaron) Wilton or the new Israeli outside hitter
(Naveh) Milo. We have to put someone out of synch in their lineup,
because we’re not going to stop Katz. We might take him out for a
game, if things are going well, but he’s just too good to take out
for the evening."
For UCLA, the timing of the rematch with Hawaii could not be
better. Opposite hitter Paul Nihipali has come on strong during the
current seven-match Bruin win streak. According to Scates, setter
Stein Metzger, whose set selection has been impeccable in that
span, is the best setter in the nation at the collegiate level.
The key to matching up with the ‘Bows, though, could be the
return of freshman quick hitter James Turner, absent in the January
match with an injured ankle. Turner dominated the net before his
injury and has again since his return, teaming with sophomore Tom
Stillwell to create perhaps the most intimidating pair of quick
hitters in the conference.
Metzger believes the outcome of the match won’t be as
consequential since Pauley Pavilion is already the predetermined
sight of the 1996 NCAA Championships May 2-4. In any case, the
Bruins will do their best to take two of three from the Rainbows
this season.
"If they win and we go there to play them in the MPSF
championship, and we end up going to the NCAAs and playing them in
the finals, they’ll never have played at Pauley all season,"
Metzger said. "And they’ll never have played in front of a big
crowd that isn’t their own. Obviously, though, we want to win,
because losing sucks."
ANDREW SCHOLER/Daily Bruin
Stein Metzger is one of the top collegiate setters in the
country.
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