Men’s Volleyball
By Lindsey Besecker
Assistant Sports Editor
The No. 5 Pepperdine men’s volleyball team defeated the No. 7 University of California, Santa Barbara Gauchos Saturday 3-0 at the Thunderdome and will face another top opponent when it hosts No. 15 University of Pacific tonight at 5 in Firestone Fieldhouse.
“We’re looking forward to it,” Head Coach Marv Dunphy said. “UOP has some good players with really good arms. They serve well, they hit well, and we’re looking forward to playing a five o’clock match.”
The Pacific Tigers fell to No. 1 University of Hawaii in their latest match, 3-1. The Tigers, however, should not be underestimated. Earlier this season, they defeated then-No. 5 UCSB 3-1.
“I know that they have a bunch of really good servers, so we’re going to have to pass really well,” sophomore blocker Andy Hein said. “It’s our home game before we go away for five games.”
After the Pacific match, the Waves will hit the road for five matches before playing at home again March 25, when they host UCSB. In that month span, Pepperdine will stay fairly local and take on No. 3 Long Beach State University, University of California, San Diego, No. 2 Brigham Young University, and University of Southern California.
“That’s just the way the schedule broke, and that’s the way it is,” Dunphy said. “It’s not so much the road, it’s how good we are and how good our opponent is. We have some quality matches on the road.”
Hopefully the UCSB match is some sort of indication of how the other matches will go. The Waves swept the match 3-0 with game scores of 30-27, 30-26, 30-24.
“We played a good opponent in their gym, and we played well,” Dunphy said. “I was pleased. We just played well on the road, and we needed to because Santa Barbara is a real good team.”
The 3-0 win marks the ninth for Pepperdine, and also another sweep of the opponent. In each of their victories, the Waves have not allowed the opposing team to take a game.
“It just shows that when we win, we put teams away,” junior setter John Mayer said. “When we’re confident and things are going well, that’s when we’re at our best and tough to beat.”
Senior outside hitter Fred Winters led the way with 22 kills for the Waves. Junior outside hitter Sean Rooney added 15 kills, and junior setter John Mayer totaled 46 set assists. Junior libero James Ka led the team defensively with 11 digs.
“We’ve done a little training (defensively), and we’ve dug some balls,” Dunphy said. “I’ve been pleased with the little bit of improvement we’ve made in our defense.”
For the Gauchos, sophomore outside hitter Evan Patak and freshman outside hitter Jake Wiens both contributed 12 kills to lead the UCSB offense. Defensively, the Waves had six team blocks to counter the four team blocks put up by the Gauchos.
With the win, Pepperdine improved to 9-3 overall and 5-3 in Mountain Pacific Sports Federation conference play. Just to show how tough the MSPF teams are, UCSB fell to 4-5 in the conference, but still holds the No. 7 national ranking.
“It’s no secret that the MPSF is the toughest conference in the nation, as far as volleyball goes,” Mayer said. “It’s kind of what everyone watches. We know, top to bottom, each team can beat anybody.”
Pepperdine has been facing many top-ranked teams, but will not face No. 1 Hawaii until the last two matches of the season before MSPF conference championships. Even so, the rankings seem to be changing every week – at the beginning of the season, Pepperdine was at the top, and last week, UCLA occupied the position.
“The league is real strong this year,” Dunphy said. “That’s not to say that it wasn’t strong the last couple years. I’ve been saying since day one, the teams (ranked) one through six or seven are real strong.”
The amount of talent in the MSPF should make the conference championships an interesting and competitive tournament.
February 26, 2004