UCLA defeat the Warriors in three straight sets
Thursday was a good day for the University of California Los Angeles men’s volleyball team as they were able to turn the page by winning a match against the Warriors after losing the last five ones that they had played. The match that rejuvenated the confidence of the UCLA team took place at the Pauley Pavilion. The Bruins secured victory for themselves by making a clean sweep over the Warriors.
With their recent win, the number seven ranking Bruins have now totalled their season win to a figure of 8. They have been able to do this at the expense of seven losses. The number of Bruins’ wins as compared to their losses in MPSF is not something that the Bruins are proud of. They have just scraped three wins as opposed to six losses. In contrast to this, the number ten ranking Warriors have an overall season wins of five whereas their losses total seven. They have been able to look slightly better than the Bruins however, in the MPSF standings. The Warriors have so far managed three wins and suffered four defeats in the MPSF.
The only players that Hawaii could rely on in their attack were Jonas Umlauft, and Joshua Walker, who is the senior outside hitter for the Warriors. Both the players were able to post 14 kills each in the entire match. Other than that, no Warrior was able to make any significant contribution towards the offense of his team. On the other hand, the Bruins were able to outplay the Warriors in the attack area. Three of the UCLA players were able to record kills in double digit figures.
Hawaii never really had any significant dominance in the first two sets of the match. At no point were they able to take a lead that went beyond two. Therefore, the Bruins were able to win the first two set comfortably at set scores of 25-21 and 25-22 respectively.
As the pressure mounted on the Warriors after the loss of the starting two sets, they were able to rally themselves together and step up their play a notch. This renewed determination allowed them to take a 16-10 lead in the third set of the match. However, the Bruins did not let their rivals go further and pushed forwards on a 5-0 run. After that, the match went back and forth in a tug of war which eventually got pulled hard the Bruins way with a kill by Jeremy Casebeer that sealed the deal for his team at 28-26.
At the end of the match, coach Al Scates of the Bruins had the following comments to make: “I went and put X’s on the floor in practice. I still saw blown assignments out there. We’re still not getting the right spots on defence, but we’ve done better than we have all year.”
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