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UCLA men’s volleyball will need to ace its performances against the hot BYU Cougars on the road

Freshman outside hitter Gonzalo Quiroga goes up for a block against Cal State Northridge. Quiroga and No. 5 UCLA will face No. 3 BYU on the road this weekend

Men’s Volleyball



BYU
Today, 6 p.m.
Provo, Utah
Watch live coverage on BYUTV.org/live


No. 5 UCLA looks to take down No. 3 BYU in a set of road games this weekend after splitting matches last season.

By Benjamin Kelly

Feb. 4, 2011 12:52 a.m.

For the UCLA men’s volleyball team, the word of the week is “further.”

UCLA will travel to Utah for a two-match series against Brigham Young, a trip that will take them further from home than any other conference road game. While the team is there, it will look for two big victories that would give UCLA a winning record before going any further into its grueling schedule.

The Bruins have clearly shown the capability to win any match; even in their losses, they make the opponent fight for each set. The team just has one adjustment to make after reaching campus.

“The altitude is high enough so the balls go farther, particularly the serves,” coach Al Scates said. “I’d say they go three to four feet farther than at sea level. We’ll be pretty acclimated to the height by game time.”

The No. 5 Bruins (7-3, 2-2 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) go to Utah hoping to halt a hot streak for the No. 3 Cougars (7-2, 4-2). BYU has won four straight matches, including an impressive two-match sweep over UC Irvine in which it never dropped a set.

In order to win tonight and Saturday, the Bruins need an answer to BYU’s blocking and ace hitting, both of which are the best in the conference.

UCLA had several games this season where poor serving made things tough. But if the team can reconstruct the kind of effort that resulted in six aces and only eight errors in the match against USC on Jan. 28, the Bruins should be fine.

“We are receiving pretty well,” freshman outside hitter Gonzalo Quiroga said.

“I think that if we can improve our serves in the two games against BYU, we’re going to do very well.”

Junior quick hitter Nick Vogel will finally see action after missing most of the early part of the season because of a nagging shoulder pain.

Additionally, Scates made the decision to shift junior Kyle Caldwell from the setter position to opposite hitter, and redshirt junior Alex Scattareggia will now play at setter.

The benefit showed against Pepperdine when Caldwell led the team with 14 kills and had four block assists.

“Kyle’s a natural opposite, so he’s been playing that for his whole life,” junior quick hitter Thomas Amberg said. “He’s actually a second setter on the court sometimes, so if Alex takes the ball first, Kyle can come in and we can still have a good setter. It really helps us offensively.”

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