NCAA Men’s Volleyball : UCLA Goes After a 12th National Title After 2 Lost Years

After two years of struggling, at least by its own high standards, UCLA is back on familiar ground as an overwhelming favorite to win its 12th NCAA men’s volleyball championship this weekend at Pauley Pavilion.

In their media guide, it says the Bruins are “back with a vengeance.”

So is Coach Al Scates, who sat through a 30-minute press conference at UCLA Thursday with a grin on his face.

Uncomfortable and unhappy in his role as a spectator at the national tournament the last two years, Scates obviously feels pretty good about this team.

“I can’t really say too much until after the tournament but I expected to win the NCAAs with this team,” he told the Daily Bruin last week.

He started practice two weeks earlier than usual last fall and scrapped the 6-2 offense he used for all but one season since 1969 in favor of the 5-1 used by the U.S. national team in which the attackers call the plays to the setter.

And UCLA, which lost in the regional final the last two years, was rarely challenged in winning the Western Intercollegiate Volleyball Assn. championship with an 18-0 record.

The Bruins (36-3) have won 25 straight matches and, as they prepare to play Ohio State (13-18) in the semifinals tonight at 7:30, find themselves in a similar situation to that faced last year by USC, which won 27 straight before losing the final to Pepperdine.

Similar, but not identical.

Penn State Coach Tom Tait, whose second-ranked Nittany Lions (25-3) meet fourth-ranked USC (28-10) in the other semifinal at 5:30, is among those who say the Bruins have been even more dominant this season than USC was last season.

“Although USC was heavily favored they at least had been challenged,” Tait said. “That has not been the case with UCLA. They haven’t had many matches where they’ve had to dig down for something extra. They’ve had enough without having to do that.”

UCLA is 6-0 against USC, 2-0 against Penn State and hasn’t lost since Jan. 24.

And with only one starter under 6 feet 4 inches, Scates has what may be his biggest team.

In fact, he went to the 5-1 offense, in part, to get 6-5 setter Matt Sonnichsen and 6-9 hitter Arne Lamberg into the starting lineup. The Bruins have a team attacking average of .347, probably the highest any of his teams has ever had, Scates said.

Their best player is four-year starter Asbjorn (Ozzie) Volstad, who was recruited off a Norwegian naval base after Scates had a friend make a videotape of Volstad playing for the Norwegian national team.

Volstad started as a freshman on UCLA’s unbeaten 1984 team. Formerly a middle blocker, he is a swing hitter and one of two primary passers in the new offense. Scates calls him the Bruins’ best defensive player and best one-on-one blocker.

“He’s the closest thing we’ve had to Karch (Kiraly) since Karch left,” said Scates, comparing the native of Forde, Norway, to the former Bruin All-American and U.S. Olympian who is recognized as the world’s best player.

If he were eligible, Scates said, Volstad would make the world champion U.S. team.

Volleyball Notes UCLA used a 5-1 offense in 1975, but Coach Al Scates said it was not as complicated as the one his team is using this season. . . . USC, which lost in the NCAA final the last two years to Pepperdine, outlasted the third-ranked Waves in a 3 1/2-hour match last Saturday in the WIVA regional final at San Diego. Pepperdine had reached the NCAA final four straight years. . . . UCLA’s record in the NCAA tournament, which adopted a Final Four format in 1974, is 32-3, including losses in the 1978 final to Pepperdine and the 1980 final to USC. . . . Penn State, despite two losses to UCLA, was ranked No. 1 for a time this season when several East Coast coaches left UCLA off their ballots. The situation “embarrassed the Penn State program,” Penn State Coach Tom Tait told the Daily Bruin. George Mason was ranked No. 2.

USC Coach Bob Yoder, on Penn State’s 6-10 All-American, Chris Chase: “He’s the type of player you’re not going to stop. We just want to make sure he doesn’t get too out of control.” Yoder also said that Penn State’s Javier Gaspar, a junior from Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, was the best setter in the tournament. . . . How did a team with a 13-18 record qualify for the Final Four? Ohio State, which was 5-5 in the Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Assn., won the conference tournament last weekend. . . . No team from outside California has ever won the NCAA title. . . . UCLA has never gone three years without a national championship since the NCAA established its volleyball title in 1970.