GARRETT WAIT
Sports Editor
The Pepperdine men’s volleyball team bounced back after a 3-0 loss to California State University, Northridge, on April 6 to sweep the Gauchos from UC Santa Barbara on Saturday, 30-28, 30-22, 30-24.
The Waves got revenge for a loss to the Gauchos on the road earlier this season as the offense shined, hitting .560 for the match. The fifth-ranked Waves dominated on the other side of the net as well, outblocking UCSB 11-2.
Three Pepperdine players tallied double figures in kills, with junior John Parfitt leading the way with 20 kills. Freshman Paul Carroll added 13 kills and senior Andy Hein pitched in with 11. Sophomore setter Jonathan Winder had 52 assists on the night, with a .722 assist percentage. The 52 assists were a season-high for a three-game match.
“We passed really well and I think with two exceptions we served pretty well,” said Head Coach Marv Dunphy. “Hopefully the time we’ve spent on that is paying off.”
Pepperdine’s 56 kills on the night were one away from their season high in a three-game match, which they set against UCLA on March 1.
Dunphy said the offense’s performance was at least the best of the season according to the statistics.
“I think we’ve had matches that were close but not quite with numbers as good as those,” Dunphy said.
The victory put the Waves at 15-7 on the season and 14-7 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation. Pepperdine sits in fourth place in the MPSF, one-half game ahead of Cal State Northridge and a half-game behind Brigham Young University.
Dunphy said he’s seen the team improve every day in practice, especially with the way they serve and receive serve.
“We’re definitely better than when we started,” Dunphy said. “I couldn’t tell you in terms of exact numbers, but our passing has improved and we’ve improved quite a bit in our ability to receive serve.”
The Waves’ next match comes against University of Southern California on Saturday at 7 p.m. Pepperdine matched up against USC earlier this season and were handed a 3-0 loss on the Trojans’ campus.
“We need to serve better and actually need to sideout better,” Dunphy said.
“We held them on offense last time. They hit 23 percent I think, but the flipside was that we had a lot of hitting errors so our hitting percentage was real low. They dug us pretty well. They run a real fast offense, so on our side we need to be ready to sideout.”
The match against USC is Pepperdine’s last regular season match.
The Waves will celebrate senior day with Andy Hein and Bradley Carter before the match. Dunphy said the seniors will be praised, but the focus should be on the match.
“We’ll acknowledge them,” Dunphy said. “It’s always a nice time, but it’ll be short and sweet.”
After the USC match, Pepperdine will find out where they’ll go for the MPSF Tournament, which begins Saturday, April 22.
“The goal is to go one match at a time and go as far as we can go,” Dunphy said.
04-13-2006
