UCLA men’s volleyball nearly overcame yet another early deficit Thursday night against UC Irvine, but the comeback fell short, leaving the stunned Bruins with few positive things to say.
“This is unacceptable volleyball, collectively,” said junior middle blocker Mitch Stahl. “Our mindset is just wrong and we’re coasting right now. … We’ve had some bad practices the past couple weeks and you could easily foresee this coming.”
The No. 2 Bruins (11-2, 7-2 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) came up just shy of their second straight come-from-behind win, as the No. 12 Anteaters (4-8, 3-7) snagged the upset in five sets (25-17, 18-25, 25-23, 24-26, 20-18).
UCLA’s offense stumbled out of the gate, totaling double-digit errors in a slow and sloppy opening set. That, coupled with Irvine’s .615 hitting percentage, created an early hole the home team would try to climb out of for the rest of the night. The Bruins would improve but the consistency never arrived.
“We’ve known for a little while that we haven’t been playing good enough volleyball to win all the time,” said coach John Speraw. “Our offense is just anemic at times and we can’t continue to accept that we can perform at that level and still continue to get wins against good teams.”
Irvine, despite coming into the match fresh off a sweep at the hands of No. 10 UC Santa Barbara, played with resolve in the face of numerous injuries and a daunting foe whom the Anteaters had already fallen to earlier in the season.
The visitors’ offensive production came primarily from junior outside hitter Kyle Russell and junior middle blocker Jason Agopian. Even without one of its biggest weapons – sophomore opposite Tamir Hershko, who was sidelined with an undisclosed injury – Irvine found a way to win.
Sophomore outside hitter Jake Arnitz attributed UCLA’s poor performance, in part, to the team’s recent play in the gym.
“We came out dead, I guess. The last two weeks of practice haven’t been where they needed to be so I think that generated how we played on the court,” Arnitz said. “The intensity and maybe sometimes the touches aren’t there. The touches you can fix, it’s more the intensity and just talking it up.”
READ MORE: UCLA and the mental side of the sport.
The Bruins seemed to rediscover their fire midway through the match, but the second set revival was short-lived. The third and fourth sets seesawed between the elite play expected of a top-ranked squad and the mistake-prone letdowns of a team that simply couldn’t figure it out.
“In a lot of ways, we’re not as attentive as we need to be, and until we get that, we’re gonna learn hard lessons,” Speraw said. “I thought we might’ve been challenged and learned a little lesson in Hawaii but apparently we don’t know that well. We didn’t come out and play with the level of intensity necessary to win, and certainly not the level of execution.”
The fifth set nearly brought its own comeback, as the home team erased a 9-5 deficit to tie the score at 14. The Anteaters would hold on, taking the final set 20-18 to finally put an end to a night UCLA would like to move on from.
For the Bruin players, though, the change has to start in the moments out of the spotlight, away from the crowds.
“You practice like you play,” Stahl said. “And we’ve been practicing terribly.”
