The UCLA men’s volleyball team can’t come out
sluggish tonight when they host the UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs in
Pauley Pavilion at 7 p.m. Looking to rebound after a heartbreaking
defeat to crosstown rival USC, the Bruins (5-5, 1-3 MPSF) plan to
use this game as an opportunity to get back into rhythm. “We
had an off night,” UCLA coach Al Scates said about Wednesday
night’s loss. “We just didn’t pass well. The
passes were so far off the net, we didn’t give (redshirt
senior setter) Dennis Gonzalez a chance to run the offense. We were
out-digging our opponents, now we’re not out-digging our
opponents. I’m going to have to change our defense a little
bit to counter things.” Though the nonconference matchup
against Division III UC Santa Cruz (5-1, 2-0 NCAA Division III)
won’t count toward the Bruins’ Mountain Pacific Sports
Federation record, UCLA may find this match crucial to the young
team’s development. Searching for an effective lineup, Scates
plans to utilize the entire active roster. “I want to play 14
players against Santa Cruz,” he said. “I want to try
some new combinations of players. I just can’t keep putting
out the same people that we put out, and hit .280 and not block
very many balls and make too many serving errors.” The Banana
Slugs are ranked No. 4 in Division III and are currently
undefeated, except for dropping a match to Stanford. Leading Santa
Cruz is kill-leader sophomore outside hitter Bryan Shires. In Santa
Cruz’s last match against San Jose State, Shires put down 15
kills for the Banana Slugs. With UCLA off to one of its worst
conference starts, Scates is more concerned with making sure his
team gets back on track. “We have very tough matches coming
up next week,” he said. “We need to win it at home. We
need to start doing that (tonight). There are a lot of things we
need to improve on, but I think we can do it. Some of the guys are
realizing that they actually have to stay after and put in some
extra time finally. Players throughout our history have always done
this when they were having individual problems. We have to get that
extra time in.”
INJURY UPDATE: Redshirt freshman middle blocker Jamie
Diefenbach, who had arthroscopic surgery on his knee in
mid-January, is back in practice. Diefenbach led the team in
hitting efficiency and blocks per game at the time of his injury,
but for now he is only taking serving repetitions. “I think
he’ll be back within a couple of weeks, which would really
help our blocking,” Scates said.