Gutty little Bruins? Not usually. But the UCLA men’s
volleyball team is displaying uncharacteristic grit for a program
that is consistently among the nation’s best.
Longtime followers of UCLA volleyball will know that Al
Scates’ teams haven’t won 18 NCAA Championships by
being gutty and little.
But this year’s Bruin squad is both of those ““ and
it still might win one.
The No. 3 Bruins showed everyone exactly how they’ve been
winning all season long on Saturday night when they beat one of the
best No. 6 seeds in MPSF playoff history in Hawai’i.
UCLA no longer has the luxury of having powerful, dominant
hitters and blockers.
Key contributors Chris Peña and Steve Klosterman
aren’t even first-team all-conference, let alone future
legends like ex-Bruins Karch Kiraly or Sinjin Smith.
In fact, the only first-team all-conference player this team has
is Adam Shrader ““ a libero.
“I guess we are the gutty little Bruins,” Scates
said. “But I’d prefer to be the dominant, big
Bruins.”
Well, that’s understandable, but UCLA has done just fine
with his current roster.
The Bruins (24-5) may not have an imposing figure like former
greats Jeff Nygaard or Paul Nihipali behind the net, but they have
found a way to win with virtually the same team which finished
ninth in the MPSF last year.
This team has played fearlessly, if not flawlessly.
The current Bruins spend a lot of time on the floor and crashing
into team benches and the press tables to save a rally. Shrader,
J.T. Wenger, Dennis Gonzalez and the rest of the team must have
knees and bellies of steel to withstand all of the time they spend
skidding across the hard Pauley Pavilion floor making point-saving
digs.
The Bruins aren’t afraid to be aggressive with their
serves, going for the ace or big serve, while risking a potential
service error. Tough serve after tough serve led UCLA to several
runs of a few points in a row against Hawai’i, and the
team’s serving has carried it all season long.
This year’s Bruins always get their hands in the way. They
don’t get many blocks, but seemingly slow down any
opportunity for a big kill by the other team. They held
Hawai’i to a .185 hitting percentage despite only having six
blocks.
And this team rises to the occasion ““ it gets better as
the match goes on.
The Warriors finally started playing like the giants they have
been the last two years in the third game Saturday. But the Bruins
kicked it up a notch to finish off the sweep.
UCLA has had several comeback wins ““ the most dramatic
being the team’s five-game match against No. 1 BYU two weeks
ago, a match in which UCLA lost the first two games.
“We’re blocking well, we’re defending well,
we’re serving well — we’re doing all the right things
we need to do to win,” Gonzalez said.
Simply put, this team does all of the little things it needs to
do to win.
What’s even more impressive about Saturday’s victory
is that the team did not play perfectly on Saturday night. Gonzalez
said he played an average match, at best. And he’s the
team’s setter ““ your attack can only be as good as your
setter.
Only four teams make the NCAA Tournament in men’s
volleyball, and only two make it from the MPSF.
So the Bruins may need to play perfectly when they go up to
Provo, Utah, for the MPSF Final Four this week. The Bruins will
need to beat No. 2 Long Beach State, who beat UCLA twice this
season, to ensure an NCAA Tournament bid.
But this UCLA team is a different team than the one that lost to
the 49ers early in the season. These Bruins have won seven of their
last eight matches, the only loss coming to No. 1 BYU (who they
also beat during the streak).
And they have mastered the art of winning ““ without being
the big bullies of college volleyball and without Olympic-caliber
players.
E-mail Quiñonez at gquinonez@media.ucla.edu.