Men’s volleyball aims to improve MPSF ranking with road wins

The symbolic monkey is finally off the UCLA men’s volleyball team’s back.

After a dominant 3-0 win over Hawai’i on Thursday, the Bruins snapped a five-match losing streak that lasted for almost three weeks.

“Just knowing we can win a game is a really big confidence booster,” junior quick hitter Thomas Amberg said. “Being on a losing streak is the worst possible thing ever and ending it is the best possible thing.”

The No. 8 Bruins (8-8, 3-7 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) are nowhere near out of the woods yet, as they followed up the win with a 3-0 loss to the Warriors on Saturday.

“We wanted to slow down (sophomore opposite Jonas Umlauft) on the first night, and we did, and we won because he gets the most sets,” coach Al Scates said. “The second night, we didn’t and they outhit us by 150 points and we got killed. The team that hits for the best average wins 90 percent of the time.”

The theme of hitting percentage is something that will loom over UCLA’s season for quite a while, as the Bruins are eighth in the MPSF in that category with a .287 clip on the season, which is more than 100 points lower than No. 1 USC.

“Coach Scates always preaches that outsides should hit .300 and quick hitters should hit .400,” freshman outside hitter Robart Page said. “We are getting closer to that and I think we can reach that.”

The next task for the Bruins will be to have a successful weekend road trip, as they will take on the No. 4 Stanford Cardinal (10-4, 7-4) on Friday and the University of the Pacific Tigers (6-9, 2-7) on Saturday.

“We aren’t really preparing for either of these teams in one specific way,” Scates said. “Both Stanford and UOP do a good job spreading out the ball. We’re just focusing on hitting balls better and trying to terminate balls that go out of system ““ that’s what we’re doing.”

Stanford, the defending NCAA champion, is led by junior outside hitter Brad Lawson, who is currently fourth in the MPSF with 4.15 kills per game.

UCLA knows, as it learned with Umlauft, that containing the opponent’s best hitter will be key.

The Cardinal have struggled lately, going 2-2 in their last four matches.

They defeated the Pepperdine Waves 3-0 on Saturday, but were swept by the Trojans before that match.

Pacific, a traditionally weak MPSF team, will play UC Santa Barbara on Friday before taking on UCLA and is coming into the weekend with a three-match losing streak.

Redshirt sophomore outside hitter Taylor Hughes leads the Tigers with a team-high 3.84 kills per set and is second with 1.02 blocks per set.

UCLA is currently tied with UC San Diego for 10th place in the MPSF and knows that it is time to start playing better.

“We’ve just got to start winning, that’s all,” Scates said. “We’re running out of time.”