Kneeling down around head coach Al Scates’ clipboard, the
UCLA men’s volleyball team completely blocked out its
surroundings, forgetting that it stood in the midst of the heckling
crowd at USC’s Lyon Center and that the band was blaring the
Trojan fight song.
Intent on the game plan, the Bruins followed up with their own
spirited action by capturing a victory against crosstown rival USC
3-1 (30-28, 30-26, 27-30, 30-26).
“We all kind of knew that this match would go our
way,” senior captain and setter Rich Nelson said. “For
us, it’s one down, three to go,”
USC (6-22, 2-17 MPSF) had a chance to push UCLA (14-12, 9-10)
further away from an MPSF tournament berth. But the Bruins
triumphed in what they hope will be the first win of four final
regular-season matches.
The match also marks a change from the losses last week against
Hawaii and Northridge.
“It’s been a while since the last time we won, and
it wasn’t pretty, but we got our win,” quick hitter
Chris Peña said.
Though the Bruins started out lagging behind the Trojans in the
first game, giving USC a false hope that they had a chance to upset
UCLA, the Bruins were never behind by more than two points.
The Bruins suddenly tied the game at 27 as the Trojans lost
momentum because of serving errors. Unable to return the following
rallies, USC gave up the first game to UCLA 30-28.
In the next game UCLA never let USC come within a point. Outside
hitter Jonathan Acosta gave the Bruins an advantage with six kills
in the second game, which ended at 30-26.
While USC prevented the Bruins from a sweeping victory in the
third game, 27-30, UCLA came back to easily clinch the final win
for the match in the fourth game 30-26.
The starting lineup was different than usual. Junior Marcin
Jagoda, who started as opposite hitter for the first time this
season brought in a career-high 21 kills with a .421 average.
Jagoda was predicted to start in the beginning of the season,
but a sprained ankle prevented him from a place in the starting
lineup until last night.
“Marcin finally had a chance to play,” Scates said.
“He blocked a lot of balls, hit well the entire match and led
the comeback in game two.”
“It was fantastic to see Marcin play,” Peña
said. “He finally got his shot to see some good playing
time.”
With such challenges as senior quick hitter Scott Morrow
rendered unable to play for the rest of the season due to injury,
many of the other players have stepped up to fill in the standing
positions.
“It’s been a real experience giving everybody a
chance to play this year, and that’s never happened
before,” Scates said. “But this bodes well for us the
future.”
Jagoda, along with Peña and Jonathan Acosta, made up what
Scates called “the big three,” with all of them scoring
double-digit kills in the match.
Overall, the team overwhelmed USC with its hitting average (.308
to .198) and matched 13 blocks each. This is the Bruins’
seventh consecutive victory over the Trojans.
With the variability of the Bruin starting lineup, the team may
still undergo changes as they focus on winning each match in the
remainder of the season.
“We have four or five players fighting for each
position,” Nelson said. “We’re all fired up for
the upcoming games.