The UCLA men’s volleyball team began its final stretch of nonconference matches strong Monday night, with a straight set victory at Pauley Pavilion.
The No. 4 Bruins (18-3, 13-3 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) handled the No. 10 Ball State Cardinals (14-5, 8-1 Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association) with relative ease, tallying set scores of 25-19, 25-18 and 25-20.
After sweeping UC Santa Barbara in two well-played matches last week, UCLA came out flat to start the match Monday.
But it wasn’t necessarily the team’s play that was flat, it was its mental state.
“We had two big matches last week,” said sophomore outside hitter JT Hatch. “I don’t know if we hadn’t recovered well or if we just weren’t 100 percent ready to go but it was nice just getting that win even if things weren’t all clicking.”
From a statistical standpoint, UCLA only had one real negative stat – 15 service errors. Other than that, the Bruins displayed an incredible amount of offense, hitting .430 on the game with 45 team kills, 44 assists and six service aces.
A somewhat close six-point victory in the night’s opening set masked the utter dominance UCLA exhibited against Ball State.
The Bruins hit .519 on the set with 17 kills, 16 assists and only three errors. The Cardinals, on the other hand, were only able to muster nine kills, nine assists and a .103 hitting percentage.
Despite those offensive numbers, the Bruins put up a defensive effort that was marred with mental mistakes.
A poignant example being when junior setter Hagen Smith jumped up in an apparent attempt to tip the ball, only to duck mid-jump and allow the ball to ricochet off freshman libero Davis Gillett.
“We have this tendency to get into a match and then figure out how far we need to go to win,” said coach John Speraw. “That’s not a very healthy habit. But you could see that in this match, I was standing up right from the get-go trying to get these guys going – but I’m very happy with the win.”
The second set saw a subdued, albeit still solid, offensive showing. The mental errors were generally fixed but service errors continued to hamper the Bruins, as they racked up nine on their way to a 25-18 victory.
In the short, three-set match, only one Bruin had double digit kills – sophomore outside hitter Jake Arnitz with 10.
“I think I did pretty well,” Arnitz said. “There’s always room to improve though, so I’m just going to get back into the practice gym and work.”
The setting duo of Smith and freshman Micah Ma’a also played exceptionally well, notching a combined eight kills and all 44 assists.
The Cardinals only saw major production from two players. Junior outside hitter Mike Scannell posted 12 kills and senior setter Hiago Garchet had 27 of their 29 assists.
The final set saw ties all the way up until the teams were 7-all, but it eventually swung in UCLA’s favor. Ball State hit a much improved .450 throughout the set while the home team kept pace at .458. Despite the Cardinals’ newfound offense, the Bruins just had too much firepower, taking the set and the match.
