Friday, March 6, 1998
BYU posts challenge to UCLA’s supremacy
VOLLEYBALL: Match against Cougars could be toughest this
year
By Grace Wen
Daily Bruin Staff
The UCLA men’s volleyball team will face its toughest challenge
yet this weekend.
The top-ranked Bruins will host No. 3 BYU on Friday and Saturday
night. Both matches start at 7 p.m. in Pauley Pavilion.
Last year, UCLA (16-0, 10-0 MPSF) came away with a pair of close
wins at BYU. The Cougars are notorious for winning at home but do
not always play well on the road. This year this preseason No. 1
team has already dropped two matches to Pepperdine on the road, a
team that UCLA defeated in five games.
The Cougars (7-2, 7-2 MPSF) return five starters from last
year’s squad. In addition, BYU has added Shane Van Beest, a member
of the Australian National Team, to further strengthen its
squad.
Van Beest and 1997 MPSF player of the year Ryan Millar currently
rank one and two in the nation in blocking with 2.83 and 2.25
blocks per game, respectively. BYU leads the nation in blocking,
averaging 9.48 blocks per game.
"Millar is just a great middle blocker," UCLA head coach Al
Scates said. "Millar is an outstanding player so now they’re really
strong in the middle and so are we. This should be a very
interesting matchup."
While UCLA’s middle blockers don’t put up the same blocking
numbers, it is the hitting contributions of Tom Stillwell and Adam
Naeve that have given UCLA a perfect record. Both players are
hitting over .400 to place the Bruins at third in the nation in
hitting.
Scates believes that conditioning will also play a key factor in
Saturday night’s match.
"We play them twice in a row, which is interesting because
whoever is in the best shape will probably win the second match,"
Scates said. "If we just continue to hit for a high average we’ll
win. Our offense has really been hot lately. The nice thing is that
Brandon can give the ball to anybody and get good results."
Stillwell is also confident of the the Bruins’ chances.
"We just need to play like we’ve been playing, play our game and
I’m confident we can beat anyone," Stillwell said. "They’ll be
challenging us pretty good so if we’re not playing hard they can
beat us. We need to come out and play our game and hopefully we’ll
win."
If UCLA defeats BYU, the Bruins will have beaten every team
ranked in the top five. This weekend’s matches will also have
implications on the future, as UCLA would be able to secure
home-court advantage for the conference playoffs with a pair of
wins.
BYU Coach Carl McGown is well aware of the importance of this
weekend.
"We’ll find out how good we are when we play UCLA, the nation’s
best team," McGown said.DERRICK KUO/Daily Bruin
Adam Naeve serves the ball during UCLA’s game against LMU.