UCLA adapts to new scoring rules

  Daily Bruin File Photo Adam Naeve, here
in 1999, was named All-Tournament at the Husky Dino Cup.
Husky Dino Championship Calgary
d. UCLA 29-27, 31-33, 25-21, 27-25

By Pauline Vu
Daily Bruin Senior Staff

The men’s volleyball team got its first taste of all-match
rally-scoring last weekend in four matches at the Husky Dino Cup in
Calgary, Canada.

Just last year, men’s college volleyball used sideout
scoring, in which a team has to serve the ball on the play to
score. Now for the upcoming season, copying Olympic rally-scoring
rules, all kills and mistakes will result in some change on the
scoreboard.

“It’s so much more exciting than sideout scoring,
there’s no comparison,” UCLA head coach Al Scates said.
“Every point is important. Everything counts.”

At the Husky Dino, where the Bruins placed second, they got
blown out in the first match by the University of Calgary, defeated
the University of Pacific and the University of Alberta in the next
two matches, and then met Calgary in the championship game for the
rematch.

There, they lost again, though this time very narrowly.

“Our first match, we played absolutely horrible,”
senior middle blocker Adam Naeve said.

The Bruins lost that first match 25-19, 25-16, 25-27, 25-15.

So, what went wrong?

“Shoot, I don’t know,” Naeve said. “We
just did a lot of things wrong.”

The coach couldn’t explain it either.

“It was our first match of the year, we were just
overwhelmed,” Scates said. “We were not yet ready to
play.”

They regrouped quickly for the game against the Pacific Tigers,
who are one of UCLA’s conference opponent in the regular
season.

Naeve led the Bruins with eight kills and true freshman opposite
Jonathon Acosta had seven. Both led the team with four digs.
Although the Bruins dominated overall, hitting .361 to
Pacific’s .218 hitting percentage, UCLA dropped the second
game to the Tigers and needed four games to defeat them.

“The reason we lost one game was that (Tiger outside
hitter Vladimir) Andric was just fantastic,” Scates said.
“His jump serves were real hot. When you’re playing
Olympic rules, when one guy gets hot he can really change
things.”

The Bruins easily beat Alberta, however, in three games. Naeve
led with 12 kills, and outside hitters Matt Komer and Cameron Mount
were second with nine kills each.

Middle blocker Scott Morrow had seven sets and put them all away
for seven kills.

“That was about as good as that sophomore’s ever
played for UCLA,” Scates said.

And then came the rematch with Calgary. With 3,470 people in the
stands and the game televised live on Canada’s Global
television, the Bruins played four close games before falling.

Still, their play in that loss proved to be the best part of the
tournament, according to Naeve.

“What I was happy about was the improvement that we made
over the three days that we were there,” he said.

Scates pointed out the effect that rally scoring had on the
match.

“That’s the most competitive four games I can
remember playing, and it took only one hour and 40 minutes,”
he said. “Everything’s a lot quicker now. There’s
not gonna be any more three-hour matches.”

But it seems that the fast-paced rally scoring will be a hit
with everyone when the men’s season officially starts in
January.

“It speeds up the game and it adds more excitement,
especially for the fans, even the players,” Morrow said.
“I do like it, actually. It makes the competition closer
among teams.”

Asked if the team was prepared to play real matches with rally
scoring, Morrow answered, “It’s hard to tell right now,
but we practice it everyday. I think we will be more than ready by
the time the season comes around.”

Though they blew the first game badly, the Husky Dino Cup showed
Scates that his defending national champion team is on the right
track.

“I’m very enthused about our performance for having
practiced only a couple weeks,” he said.

Naeve and setter Rich Nelson were named to the All-Tournament
team.

The Bruins will play the last of their preseason games this
Friday at Long Beach State’s Pyramid. NCAA rules allot teams
only four days of preseason competition, so in one day
they’ll squeeze four matches ““ UCSD at 9 a.m., USC at
10:30 a.m., UCI at noon, and Long Beach at 7:30 p.m.

“And that’ll be it,” Scates said.
“We’ll be done until January.”