‘Bows fade as Bruins shine in huge victory

‘Bows fade as Bruins shine in huge victory

UCLA comes back to avenge loss to Hawaii on Friday

By Ruben Gutierrez

Daily Bruin Staff

Faced with a dreaded sweep in the season series against No. 1
Hawaii, the No. 3 UCLA men’s volleyball team responded with a
huge15-12, 16-14, 6-15, 5-15, 15-12 win in a nonconference match
Saturday night at Hawaii.

The Bruins took down the ‘Bows only one night after losing a
Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) contest to them Friday,
10-15, 15-4, 15-11, 15-13. On Friday, the Rainbows (12-1 overall,
9-0 MPSF) devastated UCLA (12-3, 8-2) with powerful jump serves
from several hitters. Due to the fatigue that is par for the course
in such a grueling weekend series, the Rainbow servers lost a
little of their thunder on serves in the second match.

"On Friday night, their jump serving was just incredible," UCLA
head coach Al Scates said. "They have three of the top 10 jump
servers in the country, with (Erik) Pichel and Naveh Milo and
(Yuval) Katz. Their serves were just incredible and we were having
trouble passing, but when they play back-to-back matches, they lose
a little of that heat. For us, the difference was passing the
second night. We passed better than they served."

The service that Hawaii delivered on Saturday could be a prelude
to what UCLA will see at playoff time next month. With the Bruins
losing the MPSF match-up Friday, it is now evident that UCLA will
most likely return to Hawaii for the conference playoffs. In all
probability, Hawaii will play another MPSF team in the first round
of the playoffs before taking on the Bruins for the fourth time
this season.

"The league playoffs are going to be in Hawaii, it looks like,"
Scates said. "They’re going to play someone else first most likely,
so we’ll probably get the kind of serving we had (Saturday) night,
which we can handle."

Both teams exited the weekend with their big guns smoking. Not
surprisingly, Hawaii was paced by Katz, a member of the Israeli
national team, and Naveh Milo, a fellow Israeli. Katz finished with
a match-high 40 kills on the evening to lead the Rainbows after
posting 43 kills the previous evening.

The Bruins, though, also had firepower in store in the form of
All-American opposite Paul Nihipali, who finished with 34 kills of
his own for UCLA after tallying a career-high 39 in Friday’s
match.

UCLA was far from a one-man show, however, and was carried
through the deciding fifth game Saturday on the strength of
outstanding play from their quick hitters at the net. Freshman
James Turner finished with seven blocks and sophomore Tom Stillwell
did one better to end the evening with eight. Senior swing hitter
Brian Wells also contributed on the defensive end with outstanding
digging.

"Stillwell had a couple of blocks which were really crucial for
us," Scates said. "Wells had a fantastic match because of the
digging he was giving us in the backcourt. He really got a lot of
balls up for us. He had 17 digs, which we really needed and he
passed real well."

The split in the two-match series should cause a shuffle in the
national rankings which will be released today. UCLA will almost
certainly emerge from the weekend as the second-ranked team in the
country by virtue of Saturday’s win coupled with a loss to Ball
State by No. 2 Long Beach State.

UCLA will almost certainly emerge from the weekend as the
second-ranked team in the country by virtue of Saturday’s win
coupled with a loss to Ball State by … Long Beach State.

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