By Amanda Fletcher
Daily Bruin Contributor
FORT WAYNE, Ind. ““ The UCLA men’s volleyball team
has been in this same position 21 times before. Seventeen of those
years, they went home with a ring. Saturday, UCLA will attempt to
win its 18th NCAA championship as it takes on Ohio State at 11 a.m
at Fort Wayne’s Allen County War Memorial Coliseum.
Though some can say that UCLA is the favorite simply because it
has won so many times before, the Bruins’ winning ways are
more than a tradition ““ it’s the next logical step.
“We have more expectations on ourselves,” senior
setter Brandon Taliaferro said. “When we get here, we expect
to win.”
With a tough and sometimes tumultuous season behind them, the
Bruins are confident that they will be able to put another notch in
their championship belts.
“I always knew we had as good a chance as anybody (of
making it to the finals),” Taliaferro said. “It comes
down to who’s hot at the end of the season, and we got
healthy and are playing well.”
The Buckeyes’ win marks only the fifth time that a
non-MPSF team has made it to the finals.
“Now we just have to get focused and play one more match
against the Bruins,” Ohio State head coach Pete Hanson said.
“It’ll be a challenge, but if there’s one thing I
know about these kids, they’re up for any
challenge.”
As a veteran of two championship matches, Taliaferro knows that
the two teams’ levels of experience will be a significant
factor.
“It plays a lot in nerves and staying focused and not
letting emotions get too caught up,” he said.
But the way the Buckeyes battled against Pepperdine, they looked
like a team that knew exactly what the stakes were. While the
Bruins cruised past Penn State, Ohio State swept formerly No.
1-ranked Pepperdine.
“In some ways I’d rather play Pepperdine because we
played them three times before and we know them a lot
better,” senior libero Matt Davis said. “We don’t
know anything about OSU. We were killing Penn State, but it’s
not going to be like that against OSU.”
Saturday will be the first time these two teams will meet this
season and the match looks to be an exciting one. The Buckeyes will
be fighting for their first national title ““ a feeling that
may be a little foreign to the Bruins. Most of the team already has
one championship ring from 1998, but as Taliaferro explains, you
can never get enough.
“Heck yeah, I need another one,” he said. “One
at UCLA is no big deal. It’s kind of a fluke. You need two
and then you’re semi-respectable.”
Senior quick hitter Seth Burnham agreed that one on each hand
would be nice, but for him it’s about more than the
jewelry.
“We were so close in 1997 and when we barely lost in the
fifth game it was really frustrating,” Burnham said. “I
didn’t really play when we won last time. It will mean a lot
more to actually be on the court and being a part of us
winning.”
In the end, the fact that the Bruins have won 17 times before,
more than any other team in the country, doesn’t mean a
thing. Every year, they come back because every year they have to
prove over and over again that they are the nation’s best. At
the welcome banquet, Burnham wore his 1998 ring as a reminder of
this.
“Now that we’re this far I don’t want to think
about losing,” he said.
For the UCLA men’s volleyball team, losing is not even an
option come Saturday morning. When they look through the net at
their opponent, Ohio State, one thought will come to their
minds.
And that’s adding to the banners in Pauley Pavilion.