• printer friendly
• mail this article
• iPod format
• digg

Photo

Hawai’i’s Maulia La Barre prepares to spike the ball against UCLA on Saturday. The Wa

If the UCLA men’s volleyball team thought it was going to steamroll its way to the NCAA Championship this season, Saturday’s match against Hawai’i showed that the Bruins need to adopt a different mindset.

Coming off a seven-match winning streak, No. 1 UCLA was swept by the No. 3 Warriors 30-25, 30-26, 30-25 in front of a shocked crowd of 1,829 at Pauley Pavilion, UCLA’s largest home crowd this season.

“The loss showed us that we’re not as good as we thought we were,” outside hitter Brennan Prahler said. “We obviously have a lot to work on for the rest of the season.”

Falling to Hawai’i was not only the Bruins’ first home loss of the year, but it seriously derailed UCLA’s chances of grabbing the No. 1 spot in the MPSF and the right to host the conference playoffs.

Despite having beaten Hawai’i in four games the night before, Saturday night’s loss dropped UCLA into third place in the conference. The Bruins now trail both Hawai’i and Pepperdine by a game and a half for the top spot in the MPSF.

“They completely outplayed us at every facet in the game,” UCLA coach Al Scates said. “In fact, I don’t know one thing we did as well as a team.”

“They were just better than us tonight.”

A microcosm of the Bruins’ performance came in the second game, with the score tied 26-26 and a chance for UCLA to swing the match in its favor.

After a kill by Hawai’i outside hitter Matt Bender and an ace by Pedro Azenha, the Bruins fell behind 28-26 and never mustered a charge after that.

“We let them do whatever they wanted to do,” UCLA senior middle blocker Paul Johnson said. “That was the most disappointing part.”

“We had scouted their hitting tendencies and there was nothing we could do to stop it.”

Johnson, UCLA’s top hitter coming into the match, was part of the Bruins’ hitting attack that was thoroughly outplayed by the Warriors at the net.

Hawai’i out-blocked the Bruins14-4 and held UCLA’s vaunted offense, ranked fourth in the nation at the beginning of the week, to a lowly .265 hitting percentage.

“It was simple,” middle blocker Allan Vince said. “We didn’t block, they did, and that was the reason why we lost.”

Throughout the match, the Warriors had two to three guys up to block UCLA hitters, while the Bruins failed to position their hitters in a position where they wanted the ball.

In fact, UCLA middle blockers Vince and Johnson combined for only 34 hitting attempts during the full length of the match.

“When we can’t pass the ball, we can’t set the middle,” Scates said. “And when we can’t set the middle, we are going to lose.”

In comparison, Hawai’i’s top two hitters, Bender and Azenha, combined for a total of 52 hitting attempts and finished with 16 and 11 kills, respectively.

Their combined prowess at the net, along with the Warriors’ six service aces, spelled doom for the Bruins by the end of the night.

Despite the disappointing performance, Scates found a few positives to take away for his team.

“It was definitely a disappointing effort,” Scates said. “We would have liked to play them again on our home court.”

“But it’s a long season and I told the guys we just need to move on from this loss.”