Spikers hope to pass by Hawaii with flying colors
Squad to face No. 1 Rainbows at home
By Ruben Gutierrez
Daily Bruin Staff
The eyes of the collegiate volleyball world will be on the No. 3 Bruins tonight as they travel to take on No. 1 Hawaii in a crucial Mountain Pacific Sports Federation match, then meet again tomorrow evening in a nonconference contest.
If the most likely postseason scenarios pan out, the victor of tonight's match will gain home-court advantage in the MPSF playoffs. With the two squads favored to meet each other in the MPSF championship match next month, a victory here may prove to be the key to postseason success.
"This is for the league seeding," UCLA head coach Al Scates said. "What it amounts to is this: If we beat Hawaii, then go undefeated the rest of the way, they have to come here to get out of the league and go on to the NCAA finals. If we lose, then we have to go there. I would think it's going to be easier to beat them here than there."
The Rainbows (12-0 overall, 8-0 MPSF) are already responsible for one UCLA loss. On Jan. 26, Hawaii defeated UCLA (11-2, 8-1) in a five-set barnburner, when the Bruins were ranked second. The Rainbows drew a home crowd of nearly 10,000 for that match, then duplicated that figure when they hosted No. 2 Long Beach State. Scates described the crowd as the loudest he's seen in his 34 years of coaching and expects nothing less this time around.
"It's fun to play in front of a large crowd," Scates said. "We play in Pauley or the Wooden Center and get 400 or 500 so it's great to play in front of 10 thousand people. You can feel it in the crowd; it's electricity."
Maybe the extra juice the crowd provides can help UCLA shut down Rainbow opposite hitter Yuval Katz. Katz, a member of the Israeli national team, is currently the top attacker in the nation with nearly eight kills per game. Hawaii is no one-man ensemble, however, and hits at a .372 clip as a team. To put the icing on the cake, sets to this well-balanced club are delivered by the current national leader in assists per game with over 20, Erik Pichel.
"They've got the best hitter in collegiate volleyball in Yuval Katz," Scates said. "We have to take out one of their supplementary hitters like (Aaron) Wilton or the new Israeli outside hitter (Naveh) Milo. We have to put someone out of synch in their lineup, because we're not going to stop Katz. We might take him out for a game, if things are going well, but he's just too good to take out for the evening."
For UCLA, the timing of the rematch with Hawaii could not be better. Opposite hitter Paul Nihipali has come on strong during the current seven-match Bruin win streak. According to Scates, setter Stein Metzger, whose set selection has been impeccable in that span, is the best setter in the nation at the collegiate level.
The key to matching up with the 'Bows, though, could be the return of freshman quick hitter James Turner, absent in the January match with an injured ankle. Turner dominated the net before his injury and has again since his return, teaming with sophomore Tom Stillwell to create perhaps the most intimidating pair of quick hitters in the conference.
Metzger believes the outcome of the match won't be as consequential since Pauley Pavilion is already the predetermined sight of the 1996 NCAA Championships May 2-4. In any case, the Bruins will do their best to take two of three from the Rainbows this season.
"If they win and we go there to play them in the MPSF championship, and we end up going to the NCAAs and playing them in the finals, they'll never have played at Pauley all season," Metzger said. "And they'll never have played in front of a big crowd that isn't their own. Obviously, though, we want to win, because losing sucks."
ANDREW SCHOLER/Daily Bruin
Stein Metzger is one of the top collegiate setters in the country.
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