EDWARD LIN/Daily Bruin Freshman Adam Shrader
celebrates after a point during Saturday’s win over Pepperdine. The
game marked coach Al Scates’ 1000th win. UCLA d.
PEPPERDINE 25-30, 32-30, 30-28, 30-26
By Pauline Vu
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
When men’s volleyball coach Al Scates walked into the
locker room after the game Saturday night, his players gave him a
standing ovation.
“We were all real stoked for Al,” junior opposite
hitter Ian Burnham said. “We just wanted to get
Scater’s thousandth win.”
Saturday night at Firestone Fieldhouse, in front of 2,567 fans,
No. 4 UCLA (5-3, 1-1 MPSF) defeated No. 3 Pepperdine (6-2, 2-2)
25-30, 32-30, 30-28, 30-26 to set a couple of personal
milestones.
Sure, Scates got his 1000th, but that wasn’t the only news
of the night. The team served 14 aces, two by Burnham, one by
junior outside hitter Matt Komer, and one by sophomore middle
blocker Scott Morrow, a soft float serve that the Waves thought was
going out but landed just inside the line instead. It was
Morrow’s first career ace.
Adam Naeve took care of the other 10.
“If there was a zone, that’s what I was in,”
he said.
He didn’t just break the school record for aces in a
match, which dated back to 1993, he smashed it. Before Saturday six
players shared the record with six aces.
“I’d come out and bomb a couple, but some of those
aces were just roll shots. I didn’t even hit the ball hard.
Maybe I was scaring them or something,” said Naeve, a senior
middle blocker.
It wasn’t a pretty victory. UCLA committed numerous errors
in games one and two and gave Pepperdine plenty of easy points.
But they also did what they’re known for: they played
better as the match wore on. Much better.
Take a look at the stats: the Bruins, who didn’t get a
block until midway through the second game, eventually out-blocked
the Waves 10.5 to nine on the night.
UCLA also out-dug Pepperdine, which has one of the
nation’s best diggers in senior outside hitter Scott Wong, 37
to 29. All while one of UCLA’s best diggers, senior outside
hitter Mark Williams, is out with a high ankle sprain.
And the team out-hit Pepperdine. Although in game one the Waves
led .240 to .077 in hitting, by game four the Bruins hit .406 to
the Waves’ .194.
“We sucked those first couple games,” Naeve said.
“We knew the game plan, we just didn’t stick to
it.”
“They made a lot of errors in the beginning,” Wave
senior setter Keith Barnett said. “It was easier to
capitalize.”
But things changed. The Bruins started getting some dominating
blocks. Scates, who was constantly making substitutions, found a
spark in redshirt freshman outside hitter J.T. Wenger, who tallied
six kills.
“He hit some crucial balls for us,” Scates said.
“He put away a ball most people would bump over the
net.”
The Bruins gained momentum with several 3-0 and 4-0 runs, and
Naeve started hitting aces like there was no tomorrow. The Bruins
scored five points in game three before the Waves scored one, aided
by four straight aces by Naeve.
“For starting off the match as poorly as we did, we came
back and played very well,” Scates said.
Burnham led the team with 16 kills, followed by Komer with 13.
On the other side of the net, Wong had 15 kills and junior outside
hitter Lance Walker had 11.
When asked if there was anything that surprised him about the
match, Barnett deliberated for several seconds.
“We didn’t expect to lose,” he said
“If I said that we didn’t play as well as we could,
I’d take something away from Al’s victory,”
Pepperdine coach Marv Dunphy said. “But I didn’t think
either team played well. They did what they needed to
win.”
“We were very inconsistent. At times we passed well. At
times we gave up some easy aces,” he added.
Scates attributes UCLA’s less-than-stellar play to
Williams’ absence.
“We can’t play real well until I activate a redshirt
freshman or Williams comes back,” Scates said. “All we
can do is grovel or dig more to get more attempts.”
The Bruins did something else for the first time all year: they
won the match in the fourth game. In earlier matches the team would
be up 2-1 in games, only to drop the fourth game and have to bring
the match to a deciding fifth game. Before Saturday the Bruins were
1-5 in the fourth game and three times this season they lost the
last two games to lose the match.
After the match Scates didn’t seem to be so much thrilled
at getting his 1000th win as he was relieved that the hoopla is
over.
“I’ve been getting a lot of attention. They wanted
to mike me at the Long Beach game,” he said. “It was
taking a lot of time from planning practices and things I like to
do in the afternoon.
“Now it’s done and there’s time for peaking at
the NCAAs.”