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

Photo

After dropping its first match of the season on Friday to BYU, No. 1 UCLA rebounded and defeated

The top-ranked UCLA men’s volleyball needed a wake-up call after its first loss of the season Friday, and coach Al Scates made sure the Bruins received it.

The morning after No. 3 BYU dominated UCLA in four games in the first half of their two-match series, Scates woke his players at 8:30 a.m. for two video sessions and a practice scheduled before Saturday’s match.

“I think the loss certainly caught our attention,” Scates said. “They beat us pretty bad Friday night, and I wanted to make sure our players were ready for Saturday.”

“I think you could say the players were pretty darn focused by the time of the match.”

And focused they were, as the Bruins came back on Saturday night and swept the Cougars 30-21, 30-23, 30-26 before a near-record crowd of 6,072 at Smith Fieldhouse.

The victory was critical for the Bruins (8-1, 4-1 MPSF), who broke a five-game road losing streak to the Cougars (6-3, 3-2) and maintained their position atop the conference standings.

“I was very proud of the way our guys played,” Scates said. “They showed some great resilience and proved they weren’t afraid of playing in front of a large audience.”

For a while, however, it looked like the Bruins would fall prey to the Cougars and their home-court advantage for the second consecutive night.

UCLA fell behind 9-3 to begin the match and the crowd started serenading the Bruins with chants of overrated.

“At that point, I think I was little worried,” Scates said. “6,000 people were yelling with their noisemakers and the crowd was tremendous. But our players fought back.”

The Bruins rebounded from the deficit and were led by an unlikely hero.

Dennis Gonzalez, who lost his starting setter job to freshman Gaby Acevedo at the beginning of the season, started Saturday’s match and responded with a match-high 39 assists as the Bruins converted 53 percent of his sets.

“After going through the tape Saturday, we really saw Dennis stand out,” Scates said. “I think he has finally worked himself back into the shape he was in last spring.”

Riding Gonzalez’s play, the Bruins hit .322 in the match after committing 26 hitting errors and hitting only .234 just the night before.

Outside hitter Kris Kraushaar led the Bruins with a team-high 11 kills and was a big part of the Bruins’ serving effort, recording two of the Bruins’ seven aces.

“I was surprised with our serving,” Scates said. “The night before, we made an incredible amount of service errors and the high altitude was really affecting our servers.”

“On Saturday, I told our setters to all serve three feet back (from where) they usually do.”

The changes were all part of a game plan that the Bruins devised on Saturday after being exposed by the Cougar hitters Friday night.

BYU’s two top hitters, Taylor Evans and Michael Burke, recorded only 12 kills in Saturday’s match after combining for 30 kills the night before.

“It wasn’t only our game plan that helped us stop them on Saturday night,” Scates said. “Our blockers came out and really made a presence against the other team.”