UCLA men’s volleyball looks to gain momentum with weekend matches

One thing is clear for UCLA men’s volleyball now that the team has reached the halfway point of its 2015 schedule: There remains plenty of work to be done.

Sitting in the middle of the crowded Mountain Pacific Sports Federation standings, the Bruins (8-5, 4-5 MPSF) have only recently begun to establish a momentum that they hope can carry them through the rest of the year.

No. 9 UCLA’s upset over then-No. 3 USC Sunday marked the first time the Bruins won back-to-back conference matches this season. The team now attempts to continue that streak in another tough matchup at No. 3 UC Irvine (14-3, 9-2) on Friday.

“Like every match of the season I just want to see some improvement in the way that we’re playing,” said coach John Speraw. “We had a nice week last week and I think we’ve been establishing some strengths that I’d like to see us build off of. We’re going to play some very good teams coming up, and that gives us more and more opportunities to see how we’ve grown in the first half of the season.”

The UCLA defense will have to continue its standout play in order to stop Irvine’s offensive onslaught.

The Anteaters, currently on a five-match win streak, lead the nation in kills and assists per set and have the second highest hitting percentage at .352. On the other side of the court, the Bruins pride themselves on their defensive play, which ranks seventh in the nation in blocks per set while holding opponents to just a .216 hitting average.

“We’ve kind of adopted an identity of being a blocking team,” said redshirt freshman middle blocker Eric Sprague. “What we’re going to be challenged with (at Irvine) is trying to apply our blocking skills onto this really strong hitting team. It’ll be a matchup of one of our strongest traits against one of theirs.”

The Bruins have also been labeled by their abundance of youth, but that makes the second half of the season even more important, said sophomore middle blocker Mitch Stahl.

“Our inexperience is something that we need to deal with and we’re only going to deal with it as we play more matches and as we learn and grow together,” Stahl said. “It’s kind of one of those things where Rome wasn’t built in one day – it takes some time.”

While the Romans certainly had more than two months, that is still enough time for the Bruins to establish a strong MPSF record and boost their postseason chances in an ever-shortening season.

The first step of the process begins in Irvine, in what is always a reunion of sorts for Speraw. The former coach for the Anteaters will be able to see his influence over both programs on Friday.

“I know a lot of guys on the court. I recruited six of their seven guys and I think I recruited six of the seven guys on our side,” Speraw said. “That’s gotta be almost unprecedented when 12 of the 14 guys on a single court were all involved in your recruiting.”

UCLA will head further south after Friday’s match to face a struggling UC San Diego team on Saturday night. The Tritons (2-13, 0-10) are still searching for their first conference victory of the season and dropped 12 matches in a row before sweeping Holy Names University, a Division II team, this week.

Although UCSD isn’t of the same caliber as a team such as UCI this season, it will be a chance for UCLA to try and get another all-important MPSF win under its belt.

“(Speraw) always talks about how it’s not how good you start off, it’s how good you end,” Stahl said. “We’re starting to understand that we can win, we’re winning against some good teams, we’re starting to figure things out a little bit and – slowly but surely – we’re picking up some momentum.”