UCLA men’s volleyball suffers weekend sweep by Hawai’i
Jackson Bantle said his team was “outplayed” this weekend in Hawaii. (Jose Ubeda/Daily Bruin staff)
By Claire Fahy
March 3, 2014 12:43 a.m.
Emotions were high for both coaches and players on Saturday night after UCLA men’s volleyball fell to the University of Hawai’i for the second time in two nights. While the team had exhibited energy on the court, diving after balls and making strong plays, after Saturday’s 3-2 loss coach John Speraw described his team as “bummed.”
During its second road trip of the week, No. 3 UCLA struggled on all fronts – suffering from injuries, posting a low hitting percentage and making service errors.
In contrast, No. 11 Hawai’i played some of its best volleyball of the season, sweeping the season series for the first time since 2006.
“We’re not going to blame it on the travel – they just played better than us. Hawai’i outplayed us tonight. They were the better volleyball team and we weren’t firing on all cylinders,” said redshirt sophomore middle blocker Trent Kersten. “We tried to learn a lot from Stanford and then tried to employ those things we learned in the game and sometimes you’re just not the best team on the court.”
Freshman outside hitter Jackson Bantle agreed that UCLA was simply “outplayed,” naming the team’s failure to execute as the culprit in the loss.
In Saturday night’s fifth set, UCLA had chances to pull away after jumping out to a 3-0 lead and then tying the game three different times, but failed to capitalize on those opportunities.
“We were really pumped up in the fifth game,” Bantle said. “We trained so hard and that’s kind of what we live for, so we were fired in the fifth game. They just kept putting the pressure on us with their serves and they just executed better than we did.“
UCLA appeared outmatched Saturday night as Hawai’i appeared to possess an answer for everything the Bruins hit them with. While the Bruins usually rely on strong hitting, Hawai’i’s blocking shut them down and the Rainbow Warriors had an impressive hitting display of their own, adding up to a well-rounded game for the opposing team.
“We literally got beat in every facet of the game,” Speraw said. “We just got beat. … We’re going to have to regroup here and see if we can find the energy to keep going during the middle of the season as we head towards finals week.”
UCLA drops to 10-4 in league play, having struggled against some of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation’s top teams after being swept by Pepperdine, falling to Long Beach State and now losing twice to Hawai’i – all teams ranking in the top five of the MPSF.
As the Bruins head into the second half of the season, they have chances to redeem these losses as they face many MPSF teams for the second time.
“We haven’t played a team for the second time yet. We just have to go over what we saw last time and try to see what worked against them and what didn’t work against them and try to exploit their flaws,” Bantle said.
The Bruins will take on the UC Santa Barbara Gauchos on Wednesday, once again playing against a highly ranked MPSF team.
