The world of sports can be very similar to survival in the natural world; teams that adapt to their inadequacies survive, while teams that don’t stay near the bottom of the standings.
This was certainly the case Saturday in Pauley Pavilion. The UCLA men’s volleyball team suffered a tough 3-0 loss to Hawai’i, a team that the Bruins easily beat two days prior.
The No. 7 Bruins (8-8, 3-7 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) came into the match hoping to replicate their success against the No. 10 Warriors (6-7, 4-4). But the first set, in which UCLA never led and dropped a 25-19 decision, foreshadowed how different the night would be.
“We weren’t serving tough, we weren’t playing tough and we couldn’t come up with any big plays,” redshirt junior quick hitter Weston Dunlap said.
Hawai’i arrived with a much more balanced offense. Instead of sophomore opposite Jonas Umlauft and senior outside hitter Joshua Walker carrying the team, five Warriors had seven or more points.
But the crucial difference came from a defensive adaptation that would have made Charles Darwin proud. Hawai’i shifted Walker’s court position so that UCLA could not target him. The Warriors were rewarded with both an improved passing game and less intense serving as the Bruins struggled to find him.
“Basically, they passed a lot better than we served, which made their hitting better,” coach Al Scates said. “They were hard to block and hard to figure out.”
UCLA struggled through the second set with .152 hitting. Despite four- and five-point deficits, the Bruins tied the set at 20-20. Various errors from the home team, however, allowed the Warriors to take the set 25-21.
Junior setter Kyle Caldwell and junior quick hitter Thomas Amberg pulled UCLA to a 13-10 lead in the third, its highest of the night. Yet Umlauft, with 15 kills in the match, blew open the set in the other direction. The Warriors clung on to a 23-18 lead and won the set 25-22 to complete the sweep and return to Hawaii with their first win in the last eight meetings between the two teams.
With the loss, the Bruins are now tied for 10th in the MPSF standings, making the next several matches all the more critical.
“Hawai’i played great, but we need to learn to come back in the second match and play like the first,” redshirt junior outside hitter Ryal Jagd said. “That’s the one thing we’re lacking right now is the intensity to beat a team twice.”