Match notes: UCLA vs. Loyola Marymount

[L. Ravi Narasimhan]

UCLA defeats Loyola Marymount in 4 games
15-13, 15-4, 9-15, 15-6
16 February, 1996

o/~ In the Center
The Wooden Center
The Lions growled tonight o/~

Loyola Marymount is a surprisingly good team despite their poor record
in the MPSF. They played the Bruins tough in two games, winning one,
coming back from a huge deficit in another. Unfortunately, they also
collapsed in stretches to lose the match in four see-saw games. The
same was true of the LMU match against Hawaii. A couple of lapses led
to losses. The Daily Bruin obnoxiously dubbed them "The Cowardly
Lions," and the match program claimed that the UCLA opponent was the
Cougars of BYU. Loyola gets no respect, they deserve better.

UCLA was no great shakes tonight. Metzger, Nihipali, Turner,
Stillwell, Wells, and Robins came out against Smythe, Farmer, Bennett,
Schildts, Dixon, and Tripp. Fred Robins seems to have beaten out Matt
Taylor for the second swing. Bad passing by LMU let UCLA run up a 9-2
lead. The only intrigues were UCLA passer switches in setter
right-front (followed in game three by switches in setter middle-front
as well) and doublequicks in Nihipali's left-front and middle-front
rotations. LMU scored a single point before the Bruins ran it up to
12-3 and the second timeout. And then promptly collapsed. LMU served
tougher, Robins was not on either on receive or hitting, Wells made
some errors as did Nihipali out of the back row. The LMU transition
team picked it up with some good setting by Smythe and spooled up 7
unanswered points for a UCLA timeout at 12-10. UCLA scored 13 and got
to game point. LMU moved back to 12 and roofed Turner for 13 before
succumbing 15-13.

Bennett and Schildts were getting good swings in the middle when the
passers were getting balls up. The elfin John Tripp (5'11") was able
to tool many balls off the massive UCLA block. Smythe is an agile
6'5" setter. He owns a very soft touch and can gracefully do
half-turns while in the air to confuse a block. He also reads
blockers very well. Against Hawaii and UCLA, he was able to isolate
his hitters on numerous occasions, especially when a middle committed.

Scates started Matt Taylor for Robins in game two. The results were
not all that spectacular. I don't know if Taylor is injured, but, he
didn't get many sets and didn't swing with authority on the ones he
did get. He was pounding well against Long Beach in the preseason and
played fairly well (I thought) at the UCSB Invitational. Something
seems very different. Turner is still getting back into the flow
after his extended ankle injury. He played the entire match along
with Stillwell. Not much to say about game two, except that Brian
Wells made life miserable for LMU with his serves. UCLA scored
2,3,4,7,8, 9 on an ace, 10,11, and 15. Excluding the ace, his serves
forced a rightside error, double block on the leftside hitter, double
block in the middle, a leftside error, a Nihipali kill in transition
from the rightside, another crushing double block on the LMU leftside,
and a solo stuff in the middle for game.

Taylor stayed in for game three and the passing fortunes reversed.
After going up 2-0, Stillwell missed a quickset for 2-1, LMU killed in
transition to halve, Bennett's tough serving got a block of Taylor and an
ace to force a UCLA timeout at 2-4. Taylor was getting a
lot of serves and he looked very rusty. LMU ran it up to 2-8 before
taking a nap passing. Nihipali was not crushing with his usual
panache. But, he was playing superb backrow defense, sprawling and
getting a couple of balls up pancake-style.

An error on a D in transition got UCLA to 6-9 and a Lion timeout.
Dixon got a kill in transition for 10. Robins came back in down 6-11,
Noonan came in for Nihipali at 6-12. Bruin timeout after Metzger
netted on a set. Both teams were siding out well, however, and points
were not coming easily. Robins got stuffed on the leftside for game
point, and Metzger's dump two rotations later got jammed back down on
the two inch line. I've never seen the kid so agitated. In fact, one
might say he was livid. Yes, livid would be a good description. He
was livid. And there was much rejoicing on the Lion bench.

Robins stayed in and started serving, Nihipali resumed at opposite.
Metzger channeled his anger well. He served up an ace for 2, forced a
bad pass and leftside error for 3, Nihipali got a kill in transition
for 4-0 and timeout. Tripp and Dixon were having a lot of trouble
keeping their passes in the gym. Metzger served up two more points
before a Wells error got the visitors on the scoreboard at 6-1. UCLA
ran it up to 9-4 before two points on Dixon's serve had Scates
stopping play on a stuff of Nihipali on a low-ish leftside set.
Robins finally got a kill in transition for 10. Two blocks in
transition between a Turner 31 pushed it to 13-6. Four rotations
later, Metzger allowed his blockers to murderize the rightside hitter
and then force a Bennett error in the middle to take the match.

If the Lions can just pass better, they'll continue to take games and
perhaps a match against the better MPSF teams. If UCLA plays like this
at Hawaii, I think the 'Bows will have an easy night of it. Metzger
was running around far too much tonight and the middles were not
detonating as is normal for Bruin squads. UCLA used Wells on the
x-play with good effect to break out of slumps. The homeboys did,
however, tally 20.5 blocks for the match.

UCLA next travels to $atanfjord. I hope the NorCal contingent will
take copious notes and post. I wish I could see that match.

--- Oski
Wimoweh

--
Ravi Narasimhan
Dept. of Physics, UCLA
http://www.physics.ucla.edu/~oski