Squad vies for favorable postseason seeding

By Amanda Fletcher
Daily Bruin Senior Staff

The UC San Diego men’s volleyball team hasn’t won a
single game in conference play.

Doesn’t sound like much of a threat.

But when you’re looking for favorable playoff seedings,
every match matters.

“Right now every game is more and more important,”
UCLA freshman libero Adam Shrader said. “We need to win the
rest of our league games so we can get the best seed in playoffs
and hopefully host them.”

So as the No. 3 Bruins (18-6, 10-4 MPSF) take on the Division
III Tritons (4-19, 0-15) tonight in San Diego, their sights will be
set on a win.

The UC San Diego Tritons may not be in the championship running,
but they are more than capable of playing spoiler.

A relatively short team in terms of Division I volleyball, the
Tritons rely on their passing abilities.

Last week, they broke the record for digs in a single match
(65). They crushed the old record, which was held by UCLA, by 10
digs and took UC Santa Barbara to five games in the process

This kind of solid defense gives UCSD a stronger offense despite
their lack of height.

“It allows them to score a lot more points with more
transitions,” sophomore setter Rich Nelson said.
“We’re going to have to hit smart and be ready for
balls to come back at us.”

UCSD’s consistency may not have won them many matches, but
they have been able to take some games off of the league’s
top teams including two off No. 6 Pepperdine and one off No. 5
Stanford.

During the March 3 match, the Bruins managed a sweep, but the
Tritons pushed two of those games into extra points.

“They’re a team that’s on the rise ,”
Shrader said. “They definitely gave us a struggle last
time.

“We didn’t play very well but they had a factor in
that.”

A look at the league standings shows just how important this
match is.

With No. 2 BYU (16-3) in the lead, the Cougars will most likely
host the MPSF semifinal rounds as the No. 1 seed. UCLA needs to
finish higher than No. 4 in order to avoid playing in Utah where
they lost to BYU in four games.

“It’s extremely important that we don’t play
(in Utah),” Nelson said.

“It’s a tough place to play because of the
difference in altitude. Also, the crowd is right behind you all the
time and it’s jam-packed so you can’t hear anything and
they’re all rooting against you the whole time.”

The altitude in Provo causes the ball to travel farther with the
same amount of force, so the Bruins’ worries are
understandable. When they played BYU in Utah, they made 19 service
errors and don’t want a repeat of that performance.

“(Playing BYU in the semifinals) would be the toughest
scenario,” Scates said. “It takes one whole match to
get acclimated in terms of how long we can serve the
ball.”

But one match is all you get in playoffs.

A No. 2 or 3 seed, however, would allow the Bruins to avoid
meeting BYU until the final round, which will be played at a lower
altitude at Cal State Long Beach.

But let’s not look too far ahead. The Bruins still have to
get past the Tritons.

“Right now that’s not really up to us,”
Shrader said. “We’d love to host the playoffs but BYU
and Hawai’i have one less loss than us. We just have to keep
winning and whatever happens happens.”