Friday, January 18, 2002
[ VOLLEYBALL ]
One match into the season and Dave Deuser was almost ready to chuck his game plan. Bruins dart past Flyers
in openerBy Cindy Luis
cluis@starbulletin.comThe Lewis men's volleyball coach was very frustrated with how his team played during last night's opener of the eighth Outrigger Invitational. The 11th-ranked Flyers tried to reach a peak but instead ran into a mountain of a block put up by No. 2 UCLA.
The Bruins, who have won this event the past four years, had 18.5 blocks -- 11.5 in the final two games -- in grounding the Flyers, 30-25, 23-30, 30-24, 30-24, at the Stan Sheriff Center. UCLA (3-1) will take on top-ranked Penn State (1-1) in today's 4:30 p.m. match while Lewis (0-1) meets host Hawaii (2-1) in the second match of the round-robin event.
"I always tell my guys that this is a game of mountains and valleys," said Deuser. "If you manage to get yourself to a peak in the last third of the game, you can usually pull it out.
"We may have had opening-night jitters and we started two freshmen on the outside. I'm going to have to rethink a couple of things and decide what to do."
For one thing, Deuser is hoping to somehow get sophomore opposite Fabiano Barreto motivated. Last year's national Rookie of the Year, was pulled in Game 4 after struggling to hit negative .150.
Frustrating Barreto and the rest of the Flyers was UCLA's big block, which averaged 6-feet-6 on most rotations. The teams were nearly even in stuffs through the first two games, with the Bruins holding a 7-5 edge going into Game 3.
It was tied at 24-24 when UCLA scored six straight points, five on consecutive serves by Cameron Mount, to win the game. During the run, Chris Pena came up with one of his match-high seven blocks and Mount capped it with one of the Bruins' eight aces.
Game 4 was also tight until the end. Lewis rallied to 22-19 and looked to have a scored its 20th point but a linesman ruled that Paul Johnson's kill had landed in. Instead of 22-20 it was 23-19 and the Flyers couldn't close the gap.
"We started out really slow, made too m any hitting errors and weren't blocking well," said UCLA coach Al Scates. "At halftime (between Games 2 and 3), we talked about hitting the ball in and challenging their block."
Jonathan Acosta, a redshirt freshman, had a match-high 18 kills, hitting .433. Cameron finished with 14 and Matt Komer, the Bruins' lone senior, added 11.
"We have a lot of rookies out there, and they're unfamiliar with this arena," said Komer, who has played on three Outrigger championship teams. "I feel really old out there sometimes. But the freshmen are playing well, and Acosta is playing like a junior or senior."
Gustavo Meyer, a member of the Mexican junior national team, led the Flyers with 15 kills and James Elsea had 13.
Sophomore libero Ryan Stuntz had a match-high 15 digs for the Flyers, which outdug the Bruins, 39-34.
Between the two teams, there were five players and one assistant from Puerto Rico. The Flyers' roster included two former Hawaii players -- senior co-captain Jorge Perez and assistant Jorge Alifonso, both of whom played here in 1998 and 1999.
"UCLA did a great job with their block," said Alifonso. "It was hard to keep hitting against it. And our sets were high and it allowed them to set up on us."