Spikers nearly embarrassed by UCSB

Thursday, February 9, 1995

Spikers nearly embarrassed by UCSB

Bruins pull out 3-1

win over Gauchos

despite hitting .266

By Lawrence Ma

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

SANTA BARBARA-With a vicarious 2-1 lead in the enemy's gym, the UCLA men's volleyball team found itself down, 3-1, in the fourth game against UC Santa Barbara.

Bruin captain Erik Sullivan watched as UCSB's Robert Treahy squeezed another kill through the UCLA block and found himself yelling, "This is embarrassing!"

Embarrassing or not, No, 1 UCLA escaped the from Thunderdome with a 15-12, 14-16, 15-13, 15-9 win Wednesday night. The Bruins improve to 6-0 overall, 3-0 in Mountain Pacific Sports Federation. The No. 4 Gauchos fall to 6-3, 4-2.

The Bruins would readily admit that this was not their best match of the year. A tough-serving and scrappy UCSB team made it all look, well, embarrassing.

UCLA coach Al Scates searched for positives on a night when the Bruins dropped their first game of the year and hit a mediocre .266. He found one - the Bruins out-dug the Gauchos, 59-48.

"What I told the boys was that we made some great digs and we scored points from digs that should've gone down," said Scates. "With this kind of effort, I know we're going to get better. I was proud of the match from that standpoint."

Game-one was to forecast the course of the evening. The Bruins led 5-3 after a block by John Sperraw, but the Gauchos came all the way back to lead 9-5.

UCLA countered with tough serving and eventually pulled away with a win on the errant serves and hits of the Gauchos down the stretch.

UCLA led UCSB 14-9 in the second game, but the Bruins proceeded to blow four game-points and eventually succumbed to the Gauchos.

UCLA once again rolled out to a big lead in game three, starting the frame with a 6-0 lead, but the Gauchos fought back to take the lead, 12-10. The Bruins scored the next four points and after conceding a point to UCSB, UCLA hitter Kevin Wong, who had 12 kills and 11 blocks, served up an ace to take game three.

Game four was tied at nine before the Bruins made their move. UCLA got three blocks down the stretch and a kill from Jeff Nygaard (24 kills) to close the match out. Sophomore Paul Nihipali finished the match with 21 kills.