Monday, 4/14/97
Bruins get edge over Gauchos
UCLA comes out swinging in all-out war with UCSB
By Jennifer Kollenborn
Daily Bruin Contributor
SANTA BARBARA — When UCLA squares off against UCSB on the
volleyball court, you can expect a battle of endurance.
The No. 1 Bruins travelled north on Saturday and outlasted the
Gauchos in a five-game war. UCLA defeated the sixth-ranked Gauchos
15-11, 13-15, 10-15, 15-9, 19-17 in front of a capacity crowd of
2,935 in Rob Gym.
Only a handful of Bruin fans were on hand to see UCLA and UCSB
battle it out. However, the partisan crowd did not seem to affect
the Bruins.
The Bruins (20-3 overall, 16-2 Mountain Pacific Sports
Federation) kept up the intensity to the end, avenging their
previous loss to the Gauchos (15-8, 12-6) in January.
"(UCSB) beat us at our place 15-13, so we returned the favor,"
UCLA head coach Al Scates said. "We are now going to have the
playoffs at Pauley Pavilion with this win. We have one more match,
but even if we were to lose that, we would be tied with Stanford,
and we beat Stanford in head-to-head competition."
Well, the Bruin’s "returned favor" extended its 15-game winning
streak and proved why UCLA is No. 1 in the MPSF.
"UCLA played great tonight," UCSB head coach Ken Preston said.
"They are the No. 1 team."
UCLA’s junior swing hitter Ben Moselle marked the Bruins’
victory in game one. Moselle, who came in second in hitting for the
night at .475, started off the set with a service ace and ended it
with a winning kill.
The match was tied four times at 4, 7, 8, and 11. But at 11-11
UCLA’s Tom Stillwell, who led the team with 10 blocks, came in
strong with a block and a kill to give the Bruins a two-point lead
before Moselle finished things off with the winning spike.
UCSB’s Donny Harris and Robert Treahy turned the tides in the
Gauchos’ favor in games two and three. Harris, who is only the
seventh player in NCAA history to reach 2,000 kills, put away 31
for UCSB on Saturday while Treahy added 12 blocks. Together they
helped upset UCLA’s offense, and finally forced Scates to bench
quick hitter Adam Naeve and swing hitter Fred Robins at the end of
game three. Sophomores Danny Farmer and Andor Gyulai replaced the
two.
UCLA’s substitution proved to make the difference in the next
two games. Farmer sparked the team with a strong all-around
performance, tallying 9 kills, 5 digs, 7 blocks and one service
ace.
"(Farmer) gives a lot of energy, a lot of quickness, and a lot
of different looks," Scates said. "We’ll go to him; we always
do."
The Farmer and Gyulai duo helped lead the Bruins’ comeback when
UCLA was down 7-0 in the fourth game. The Bruins tied the game at 7
with stellar hitting. Then UCSB made three errors, giving UCLA the
lead at 10-7. And the combination of Gyulai’s digs and Farmer’s
kills helped UCLA close the game out at 15-9.
Both teams slugged it out in the fifth game with nine tying
points at 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17. The game could
have gone either way, but UCLA’s defense pulled them through in the
end.
"They stopped our big hitters," UCSB’s Preston said. "In the
fifth game, UCLA did a very good job defensively."
The Bruins have one final game this season on Tuesday at UC
Irvine. After that match, the Bruins start the MPSF playoffs
Saturday in Pauley Pavilion.