UCLA swept away by Stanford, but beats Scarlet Raiders

Published: Monday, March 16, 1998

Monday, March 16, 1998

Bruin team sobered by loss, saves face with comeback win

By Grace Wen

Daily Bruin Staff

Maybe the UCLA men's volleyball team isn't invincible after all.

After dropping a match to BYU last Friday, the top-ranked Bruins have suffered another conference loss - this time to defending national champion Stanford (12-4, 11-3 MPSF).

Before a crowd of 1,005 at Burnham Pavilion, the Cardinal swept UCLA 15-11, 15-12, 15-9. Friday the 13th proved to be unlucky for UCLA, which has lost more matches in one week than it has in two months of play.

"We just didn't play very well," UCLA head coach Al Scates said. "We played about the way we did against BYU the first night. We had a lot of trouble scoring, and one of the reasons was that we made a lot of service errors in the first game."

The Bruins (18-2, 11-2) posted 26 serving errors for the night, half of which came in the first game. UCLA did serve seven aces, though.

Setter Brandon Taliaferro and opposite Ben Moselle each led the team with two aces apiece, but they also recorded the most errors with six and seven missed serves respectively. Moselle also led the team in hitting with 20 kills in 29 attempts for a .483 clip.

Although UCLA's inability to serve effectively was part of the reason why the Bruins lost, an uncharacteristic performance from middle blocker Adam Naeve also affected UCLA.

The sophomore, who had been UCLA's most consistent performer, struggled on Friday night, notching only 17 kills in 43 attempts with 10 hitting errors for a .163 attack percentage.

"Adam Naeve and Brandon weren't connecting well," Scates said. "We went to Adam too much that night because he had been carrying us for so long. We were just hoping that he would start producing. Although he got better later in the evening, he got off to a very slow start and didn't put up the numbers we're used to."

While Naeve was cold and hot, Stanford's Andy Witt brought enough heat to the floor to warm the entire gym. The sophomore outside hitter, who has had up and down performances this season, punished UCLA with 26 kills, two aces and 10 digs.

* * *

The Bruins rebounded on Saturday night to handily defeat the University of Pacific 15-12, 15-9, 15-7.

UCLA outhit Pacific .493 to .315. Middle blocker Danny Farmer led the Bruin attack with 20 kills in two games for a blistering .750 hitting percentage (20-2-24). Tom Stillwell added 19 kills and seven digs to help the Bruin effort. Despite being under the weather for most of the week and receiving clearance to play late Friday, the senior captain of the Bruin squad hit .692 for the night.

The Bruin bench contributed as well, with Matt Davis and Mark Williams both hitting over .500 with seven kills and eight kills, respectively.

UCLA will host Rutgers University on Tuesday night for a non-conference match. The Bruins hold a 4-0 series lead over the Scarlet Raiders .