The Steve Klosterman saga continued Friday night, but the match against Ball State University also marked the return of the Bruins’ middle force.
The No. 5 Bruins completed the two-match series sweep against No. 15 Ball State, defeating the Cardinals 30-28, 30-22, 30-21. The victory raises UCLA’s record to 14-9 overall.
Klosterman only needed three kills on Friday to surpass former Bruin Trevor Schirman, who was fourth on UCLA’s career kill leader chart with 1,374. The senior opposite smashed this record with his 15 kills against the Cardinals, and now has 1,388 career kills. He now needs 200 kills this season to overtake Adam Naeve’s 1,587.
But while Klosterman has had a steady hand for UCLA, what had been missing was a middle attack. Bruin middle Jamie Diefenbach had been a defensive force, but his offensive numbers were lacking, and his hitting efficiency took a hit for awhile. Fellow quick hitter Brett Perrine has been hitting effectively, but had not been set much.
Friday, however, they broke loose.
Diefenbach put down 10 of the sets that went his way, hitting a team-high .750.
“He hasn’t been hitting for a very good average, but tonight he got loose a little bit,” coach Al Scates said. “I’d be happy with .400, but .750 is very nice.”
“The main thing was that I was actually putting away my swings tonight,” Diefenbach said.
“It was nice to be more involved in the offense.”
Perrine also hit double figures for the first time since his career high 15 kills against USC in January, tying Diefenbach’s 10 kills and adding in 4 block assists Friday.
“It’s very fun when we get a lot of sets,” said Perrine, who received 18 sets, the most behind Klosterman’s 30. “We get a lot more action than just jumping up in the air and not hitting anything. On Wednesday we didn’t really get set too much so we didn’t think (Ball State) was going to be keying on us, on Jamie and I.”
Against the Cardinals Wednesday, the Bruins took note of the Cardinals’ defensive set up, and saw that a middle attack would be wide open.
On Wednesday, the UCLA setters went to the middle 17 times, but on Friday, they exploited the opening in the middle and went to Perrine and Diefenbach for twice as many sets.
“The middles really helped us,” Scates said.
“(Ball State) was going one-on-one with (our) middles and just spreading to the sidelines to take our outside hitters. So I thought our middles could take them one-on-one and they did.”
With the win, the Bruins built up some momentum going into the lull of finals week and spring break, during which time there will be no matches. But UCLA is hoping that ending on a high note with these two wins will help them against Pepperdine and USC in two weeks ““ two crucial matchups for the Bruins.
“These two wins help us out,” Perrine said. “We’ll take care of our finals and then look forward to beating Pepperdine.”