Squad falls to undefeated BYU at packed Fieldhouse
By Daily Bruin Staff
Feb. 25, 2001 9:00 p.m.
 CATHERINE JUN Mark Williams leaps for
the ball as teammate Adam Naeve watches on during
a 3-2 win over UC Santa Barbara earlier this month.
BYU d. UCLA 30-22,28-30,30-26,30-22
By Pauline Vu
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
In front of a Smith Fieldhouse record 6,119 fans, the No. 1 UCLA
men’s volleyball team fell in four games to No. 2 Brigham
Young.
“We just flat-out got beat, is the bottom line,”
UCLA Coach Al Scates said. “We only hit .139. You can’t
beat anybody hitting .139″
UCLA (10-4, 4-2 MPSF) lost 30-22, 28-30, 30-26, 30-22, ending a
six-match winning streak, while BYU remains undefeated (9-0,
5-0).
“This win is good for us right now, but it doesn’t
do anything for us tomorrow night or the next night,” BYU
Coach Carl McGown said after the game. “We still have some
very tough matches ahead.”
Scates cited two things that made the match tough for the
Bruins: the higher elevation of the arena and the huge crowd.
Smith Fieldhouse is 45,000 above sea level, so when the Bruins
serve, the ball goes a few feet further than it normally does at
sea level.
This didn’t bode well for the hard-serving UCLA team,
which entered the match with a high average of one ace for every
two errors.
Scates knew it would be bad from the very first serve, which
started with sophomore setter Rich Nelson.
Nelson served a soft floater ““ and it still went out.
“(Smith Fieldhouse) requires a whole different serving
technique,” Scates said. “You have to put a lot of
topspin on the ball.”
The Bruins ended up with one ace and 19 errors.
“Out serving doesn’t work up there,” senior
quick hitter Adam Naeve said. “We really couldn’t put
too much heat on it.”
Next was the standing-room only crowd ““ which didn’t
include the 2,500 that got turned away at the door. It did,
however, include temporary bleachers, fans packed in the aisles,
and BYU officials having to open up a partial-view section.
Scates knew this would be bad from the game’s second
serve.
Naeve went back, and before he could serve, Scates had to ask
Event Management to keep the fans from screaming in Naeve’s
ear.
“We’ve played in front of a sellout crowd before,
but they’re not jammed up close to the server like
there,” Scates said.
Actually, Naeve said he didn’t mind the fans. “I was
(back there) on purpose. I like them standing a foot away from my
ear and screaming at the top of their lungs,” he said.
But he added that it might have affected some of the other
Bruins.
“They were definitely the loudest crowd that we’ve
played in front of this year,” Naeve said. “Possibly,
some of the guys were a little bit rattled by it.”
UCLA’s only bright spot was junior Greg Coon, who came off
the bench to hit 7 of 9 kills at a .778 clip. Sophomore Cameron
Mount had 10 kills to lead the team, and junior Ian Burnham added
nine. BYU junior Mike Wall led all hitters with 22 kills.
“BYU did everything better than we did,” Scates
said.
The Cougars have some tough road matches ahead, and the Bruins
better hope that BYU loses some of them. Because whoever wins the
conference gets home court advantage come playoff time, and Smith
Fieldhouse isn’t a place UCLA wants to play in again.
