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Sophomore Jonathan Acosta slams one to USC's Derek Otte in last night's 3-1 victory.

Kneeling down around head coach Al Scates’ clipboard, the UCLA men’s volleyball team completely blocked out its surroundings, forgetting that it stood in the midst of the heckling crowd at USC’s Lyon Center and that the band was blaring the Trojan fight song.

Intent on the game plan, the Bruins followed up with their own spirited action by capturing a victory against crosstown rival USC 3-1 (30-28, 30-26, 27-30, 30-26).

“We all kind of knew that this match would go our way,” senior captain and setter Rich Nelson said. “For us, it’s one down, three to go,”

USC (6-22, 2-17 MPSF) had a chance to push UCLA (14-12, 9-10) further away from an MPSF tournament berth. But the Bruins triumphed in what they hope will be the first win of four final regular-season matches.

The match also marks a change from the losses last week against Hawaii and Northridge.

“It’s been a while since the last time we won, and it wasn’t pretty, but we got our win,” quick hitter Chris Peña said.

Though the Bruins started out lagging behind the Trojans in the first game, giving USC a false hope that they had a chance to upset UCLA, the Bruins were never behind by more than two points.

The Bruins suddenly tied the game at 27 as the Trojans lost momentum because of serving errors. Unable to return the following rallies, USC gave up the first game to UCLA 30-28.

In the next game UCLA never let USC come within a point. Outside hitter Jonathan Acosta gave the Bruins an advantage with six kills in the second game, which ended at 30-26.

While USC prevented the Bruins from a sweeping victory in the third game, 27-30, UCLA came back to easily clinch the final win for the match in the fourth game 30-26.

The starting lineup was different than usual. Junior Marcin Jagoda, who started as opposite hitter for the first time this season brought in a career-high 21 kills with a .421 average.

Jagoda was predicted to start in the beginning of the season, but a sprained ankle prevented him from a place in the starting lineup until last night.

“Marcin finally had a chance to play,” Scates said. “He blocked a lot of balls, hit well the entire match and led the comeback in game two.”

“It was fantastic to see Marcin play,” Peña said. “He finally got his shot to see some good playing time.”

With such challenges as senior quick hitter Scott Morrow rendered unable to play for the rest of the season due to injury, many of the other players have stepped up to fill in the standing positions.

“It’s been a real experience giving everybody a chance to play this year, and that’s never happened before,” Scates said. “But this bodes well for us the future.”

Jagoda, along with Peña and Jonathan Acosta, made up what Scates called “the big three,” with all of them scoring double-digit kills in the match.

Overall, the team overwhelmed USC with its hitting average (.308 to .198) and matched 13 blocks each. This is the Bruins’ seventh consecutive victory over the Trojans.

With the variability of the Bruin starting lineup, the team may still undergo changes as they focus on winning each match in the remainder of the season.

“We have four or five players fighting for each position,” Nelson said. “We’re all fired up for the upcoming games.