It caused heartaches and tears for many members of the
men’s volleyball team. The Bruins were on the brink of
winning their 19th national title last May, but Pepperdine washed
their title hopes away.
Since then, the No. 7 Bruins have tried to put the loss behind
them. But the memories re-enter their minds tonight ““ they
host the No. 3 Pepperdine Waves at Pauley Pavilion on the same
court on which Pepperdine beat UCLA last May.
“It sucks to lose the championship, so hopefully we can
take out some of that anger on them this week,” sophomore
libero Tony Ker said. “You just gotta try to overcome that
and get out there and hopefully do our best, win once, and then
we’ll remember those things instead of the times that we
lost.”
“It was a big disappointment, but (the Waves) played well
at the end,” said undergraduate assistant coach and former
Bruin outside hitter Kris Kraushaar, whose last game as a player
was the championship match against Pepperdine.
“We came out, and we played like we knew how to,”
Kraushaar said. “We just didn’t get the plays that we
needed in the end.”
Those who remember the match more passionately will come out
with fire tonight, hoping to avenge the loss.
“We got a lot to prove and definitely want to get this
win, get some payback,” junior opposite Steve Klosterman
said.
But the Bruins, who entered last year’s tournament as the
favorite, won’t have quite as good a shot at beating
Pepperdine this time around.
Since the last time the two teams met, the gap between the
Bruins and the Waves has grown: UCLA has parted with six of its
starters, while Pepperdine has lost only three. This year, the
Waves have never fallen out of the top three in the national
rankings, whereas the Bruins have been struggling for consistency
and have not broken the top five since the 2006 season began.
“We both started off strong, but they seem to be playing
pretty well,” Klosterman said. “I think they’ve
got the momentum more going into the playoffs.”
Pepperdine, meanwhile, has been doing a little reloading of its
own. The Waves have been trying to find someone to fill the shoes
of departed 2005 Player of the Year Sean Rooney, who had about a
third of the Waves’ kills last season.
Junior outside hitter John Parfitt has stepped up for
Pepperdine, adding an average of 3.89 kills per game. Australian
newcomer Paul Carroll has boosted the Waves’ kill count as
well, contributing an average of 3.52 per game. Combining those two
players’ efforts, it seems Pepperdine has not missed a
step.
So while the Bruins need a tough effort to beat a solid
Pepperdine team, they relish the challenge to prove themselves
against one of the best teams in the country. But more importantly,
their focus is simply on winning.
“We came up big in one match (this season), and that was
at Hawai’i,” UCLA coach Al Scates said. “We play
better at home and we’ll have a good chance to (come up big)
against Pepperdine. We’ll have a great opportunity to beat
some of those teams ahead of us this week.”
“We just need to start playing well against good
teams,” Kraushaar said. “We haven’t done that in
a while. If we play well (tonight), it’ll be a step in the
right direction.”