UCLA men’s volleyball ends a five-match losing streak in sweep of Hawai’i
Freshman outside hitter Robart Page and the No. 7 Bruins ended their losing streak with a win over the No. 10 Warriors.
Men’s volleyball
UCLA 3
Hawai'i 0
Men’s volleyball
Saturday, 7 p.m.
Pauley Pavilion
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The No. 7 Bruins look to win their second consecutive match when they play the No. 10 Warriors for the second time in three days on Saturday.
By Benjamin Kelly
Feb. 18, 2011 2:27 a.m.
The UCLA men’s volleyball team sauntered out of the locker room wearing candy leis after defeating Hawai’i on Thursday.
The Bruins’ choice of celebration after sweeping the Warriors was meant to be ironic, and UCLA had every reason to celebrate.
On the heels of a five-match losing streak, the 3-0 victory at Pauley Pavilion got the Bruins back on their feet and in position to return to their winning ways.
The No. 7 Bruins (8-7, 3-6 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) opened the night with a smothering defense against the No. 10 Warriors (5-7, 3-4), thanks to freshman outside hitter Robart Page, who was assigned to standout sophomore opposite Jonas Umlauft.
“We got in front of (Umlauft) and stopped him,” Page said. “He was always off the net, not hitting consistently.”
Aside from Umlauft and senior outside hitter Joshua Walker, who each had 14 kills, Hawai’i had no source of offense, while UCLA had three players who tallied double-digit kills to go along with team totals of six aces and 13 errors.
Throughout the first two sets, Hawai’i never led by more than two points. The Bruins cruised through both, winning 25-21 and 25-22, respectively. But on the brink of defeat, Umlauft and his Warriors raised the intensity, leading 16-10 in the third set.
But led by freshman outside hitter Gonzalo Quiroga, UCLA pulled off a 5-0 run to pull within one. The teams traded points for most of the remainder of the game. But with UCLA up by one, redshirt junior outside hitter Jeremy Casebeer made his lone kill of the night memorable; the smash down the middle sealed a 28-26 win and the match.
For a team that has lost in many competitive performances, the relief was huge.
“We didn’t panic when we were down 15-10; we just did our job and came back,” senior libero Tom Hastings said of the team’s attitude during a timeout.
The victory was UCLA’s second sweep of Hawai’i, the first coming in the Outrigger Hotels Invitational in January. The Bruins will host the Warriors again on Saturday, but not before studying some tape and going through a few last-minute drills.
“I went and put X’s on the floor in practice,” coach Al Scates said. “I still saw blown assignments out there. We’re still not getting the right spots on defense, but we’ve done better than we have all year.”
