The men’s volleyball team has had some trouble treading in deep water to start the season, but after this weekend it may finally be able to stay afloat.
The No. 8 Bruins (5-6, 3-5 MPSF) will host No. 13 Pacific (6-5, 4-3) tonight and unranked Stanford (1-11, 1-6) Saturday night in Pauley Pavilion to conclude UCLA’s six-match home stand. They hope that by the end of the weekend they will come out even in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation with a record of 5-5.
It was a similar battle UCLA fought nearly all of last season, but the Bruins are hoping for a better start this time around. At a similar point last season, the soon-to-be national champions were 2-4 in the league but pulled even with wins against Stanford and Pacific at home.
“It would be nice to come out .500 in league this weekend,” libero Tony Ker said.
And sweeping the weekend may not be too difficult for the volleyball squad, who just came off a couple of strong performances against Hawai’i last week. In the series, the Bruins found a consistent lineup that could finish off a match without having to go five sets to do so.
But despite the Bruins’ momentum, the Tigers are also coming off a winning streak of their own, taking down No. 12 Long Beach State most recently. Pacific has also fared well against teams UCLA struggled against; the Tigers swept Northridge, whom the Bruins defeated in five, and beat USC. But the Tigers also dropped a pair to Hawai’i, whom the Bruins recently swept.
“Pacific is having a great year, really just coming alive up there,” outside hitter Paul George said. “We gotta show up and really play our game and not rely on the other team to go down for us.”
In the history of the UCLA volleyball program, Pacific has never taken a match from the annual volleyball giants. The Bruins are 23-0 against the Tigers, and they are hoping to stay undefeated in the matchup.
“They’ve been playing well so far,” Ker said. “(But) we beat them earlier this season in the Santa Barbara tournament and we got a good look at them then. I think we’ve got the momentum going into the match.”
The biggest threat to today’s match will be outside hitter Pekka Seppanen, who is averaging 4.33 kills per game, .3 aces per game and 4.98 points per game, all statistics that place him sixth in the conference.
“We didn’t stop him on Jan. 5 when we played him the last time,” UCLA coach Al Scates said. “He had a great outing. We’re going to have to slow him down to beat them.”
Stanford should not pose much of a problem for the Bruins, as the Cardinal rank last in nearly every major category. At the bottom of the barrel, Stanford has only squeaked out one win, against UC San Diego, which is historically one of the weakest teams in the MPSF.
“Stanford is having a tough year,” George said. “But anybody can win on any given day, especially in this league. Everyone is just a jumbled mess right now.”
FREEBIES: At Saturday’s match against Stanford, the first 250 fans will receive a free UCLA volleyball drawstring backpack.
NATIONAL BRUINS: Six former Bruins will be competing in the U.S. Men’s Training Team exhibition tour starting Saturday. For the next four Saturdays, former lettermen Brandon Taliaferro, Matt McKinney, Paul Johnson, Kris Kraushaar, Allan Vince and Damien Scott will participate in a team scrimmage as part of the Southern California Tour. Members of the 18-man training team will split up into squads of two and play each other as a way of promoting the sport in the team’s new home in Southern California, relocated from Colorado. Saturday’s match will be held at 7 p.m. at Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana. More information is available at usavolleyball.org.