The top-ranked UCLA men’s volleyball needed a wake-up call
after its first loss of the season Friday, and coach Al Scates made
sure the Bruins received it.
The morning after No. 3 BYU dominated UCLA in four games in the
first half of their two-match series, Scates woke his players at
8:30 a.m. for two video sessions and a practice scheduled before
Saturday’s match.
“I think the loss certainly caught our attention,”
Scates said. “They beat us pretty bad Friday night, and I
wanted to make sure our players were ready for Saturday.”
“I think you could say the players were pretty darn
focused by the time of the match.”
And focused they were, as the Bruins came back on Saturday night
and swept the Cougars 30-21, 30-23, 30-26 before a near-record
crowd of 6,072 at Smith Fieldhouse.
The victory was critical for the Bruins (8-1, 4-1 MPSF), who
broke a five-game road losing streak to the Cougars (6-3, 3-2) and
maintained their position atop the conference standings.
“I was very proud of the way our guys played,”
Scates said. “They showed some great resilience and proved
they weren’t afraid of playing in front of a large
audience.”
For a while, however, it looked like the Bruins would fall prey
to the Cougars and their home-court advantage for the second
consecutive night.
UCLA fell behind 9-3 to begin the match and the crowd started
serenading the Bruins with chants of overrated.
“At that point, I think I was little worried,”
Scates said. “6,000 people were yelling with their
noisemakers and the crowd was tremendous. But our players fought
back.”
The Bruins rebounded from the deficit and were led by an
unlikely hero.
Dennis Gonzalez, who lost his starting setter job to freshman
Gaby Acevedo at the beginning of the season, started
Saturday’s match and responded with a match-high 39 assists
as the Bruins converted 53 percent of his sets.
“After going through the tape Saturday, we really saw
Dennis stand out,” Scates said. “I think he has finally
worked himself back into the shape he was in last
spring.”
Riding Gonzalez’s play, the Bruins hit .322 in the match
after committing 26 hitting errors and hitting only .234 just the
night before.
Outside hitter Kris Kraushaar led the Bruins with a team-high 11
kills and was a big part of the Bruins’ serving effort,
recording two of the Bruins’ seven aces.
“I was surprised with our serving,” Scates said.
“The night before, we made an incredible amount of service
errors and the high altitude was really affecting our
servers.”
“On Saturday, I told our setters to all serve three feet
back (from where) they usually do.”
The changes were all part of a game plan that the Bruins devised
on Saturday after being exposed by the Cougar hitters Friday
night.
BYU’s two top hitters, Taylor Evans and Michael Burke,
recorded only 12 kills in Saturday’s match after combining
for 30 kills the night before.
“It wasn’t only our game plan that helped us stop
them on Saturday night,” Scates said. “Our blockers
came out and really made a presence against the other
team.”