On an afternoon when starting out flat would not be enough, the UCLA men’s volleyball team succumbed from the beginning to a Stanford squad that was ready from the get-go.
The No. 3 Bruins (13-3, 9-3 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) fell to No. 4 Stanford (12-2, 10-2) Sunday afternoon in Northern California (25-21, 20-25, 25-22, 25-20). The loss came on the heels of a Friday night sweep at No. 9 Pepperdine.
The Bruins had a 14-11 lead midway through the first set, but couldn’t hold on as they dropped the opener 21-25. Slow starts have been a pattern for UCLA this season, and getting over them has not been easy.
“I think it’s gonna take a little bit of maturity from all of us,” said freshman setter/hitter Micah Ma’a. “We’re gonna need to give 100 percent effort on every single play.”
Things turned around in the second set. Midway through the period, sophomore outside hitter JT Hatch made an acrobatic save to extend the Bruins’ lead to 19-16, and the Bruins rode that momentum to close out the set 25-20.
But UCLA could only hold Stanford off for so long.
Redshirt sophomore middle blocker Kevin Rakestraw managed to put up 11 kills with a .733 hitting percentage to headline the Cardinal’s .400 percentage overall.
“Stanford played really good offensive volleyball and we didn’t do enough defensively to slow them down,” said coach John Speraw. “I felt good about a lot of things, but ultimately, they had a really nice performance from their middle blockers and their opposite, and I think we didn’t do enough to adapt.”
The Cardinal closed out the match with victories in the third and fourth sets, sending the Bruins back to Westwood with a 1-1 split on its two-match weekend road trip.
Although the Bruins did not achieve the desired result Sunday, they still found positives in their performance.
“Our hitting percentage through this match – even though it was lower than theirs – was still higher than usual,” said sophomore outside hitter Jake Arnitz.
The Bruins registered a .320 success rate behind the play of Arnitz and Hatch, who put up 14 and 12 kills, respectively. Ma’a added 11 of his own and redshirt sophomore middle blocker Oliver Martin made the most of his chances, posting a .688 hitting percentage without a hitting error.
UCLA returns to play with another conference match Wednesday night in Pauley Pavilion against Cal Baptist (8-9, 3-9). The Bruins swept the Lancers in the teams’ first meeting, handling its MPSF foe in straight sets back in January.
Contributing reports by Tanner Walters, Bruin Sports senior staff.
