Wednesday, January 20, 1999
Bruins rig for challenging competition at tournament
VOLLEYBALL: No. 1 UCLA team travels to island state to defend
its title against Penn state, Lewis, Hawaii
By Pauline Vu
Daily Bruin Contributor
When they head out to Hawaii today for the prestigious Outrigger
Tournament, the No. 1 UCLA men’s volleyball team (1-0) should
finally expect some competition.
Not UCSB, which the men handily defeated last week, and not some
"we’re just playing for experience in scrimmages so now we’ll let
the second string dominate" teams.
Not this time. When UCLA enters the tournament as defending
Outrigger champions, they’ll find one challenging team in Penn
State and two more tough teams who are figuratively breathing down
their backs in No. 2 Lewis and No. 3 Hawaii. They both posed real
and threatening challenges last year.
The team opens the Outrigger against unranked Penn State, which
has opened at 0-4. This figure is misleading, however, as two of
these losses came to No. 4 Pepperdine (4-0) last week and No. 5
Ohio State (1-2).
Penn State still figures to be challenging with five returning
seniors, including Dan Pollack, a two-year starter who came within
four assists of the NCAA single-season record last year, with
2,126.
Teammate Tony Mazzullo, last year the EIVA Player of the Year,
also returns as a senior. Last year he posted 15 double-doubles
(kills-digs) and posted the third-best kill total in school history
with 599.
Thursday the Bruin men will play Lewis in a rematch of last
year’s electrifying NCAA semifinals. The Flyers had won the first
game and led 9-7 in game two before UCLA grabbed the next 19 points
to eventually win the match, 3-2. They then beat Pepperdine in the
finals for the NCAA title.
This game should look similar to last year’s semifinals, as many
of the faces there will be the same: the Flyers return all six
starters, while the Bruins return four.
Senior outside hitter Victor Rivera will be the go-to guy the
Bruins must contain. Rivera set the NCAA single-season record with
915 kills last year, and his 54 kills against Ohio State was the
highest NCAA total for the year.
On Friday, the Bruins round out the tournament against host
Hawaii, who they defeated in the final match of last year’s
Outrigger to win the tournament title. Although the Bruins swept
them then, 3-0, the Rainbows later became one of only four teams to
win an entire match against the Bruins.
The Bruins will have to face one of the nation’s best blocking
tandems in returners Andre Breuer and Dejan Miladinovic, the
centerpiece of the Rainbow attack.
UCLA returns four starters in junior Adam Naeve, senior Fred
Robins, sophomore Mark Williams and junior Brandon Taliferro.
Despite these obviously talented and record-setting teams the
Bruins will face, with the No. 1 ranking they are still expected to
repeat as Outrigger champions.
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