UC IRVINE NOTEBOOK / JOHN WEYLER : Volleyball Team Wins a Few, Goes Giddy

A couple of wins can do wonders for your attitude . . . especially when you’re used to winning a couple of matches a year.

Three wins, that’s enough to make you downright giddy.

“It’s really fun,” said James Felton, assistant men’s volleyball coach and a former Anteater player. “Everybody’s life is like brighter. The sun is always shining.”

For the past two seasons, Coach Andy Read has lived in the shadow of a 4-40 record. Last year, the Anteaters’ two “victories” included a season-opening forfeit by La Verne. Read had begun to question more than just his lot in life.

“The teams I coached here the last two years lost more games than all the club and high school teams I coached over the last 10 years put together,” said Read, who led the Marina High boys to Sunset League titles in 1987 and ’88. “There were nights when I went home and looked at myself in the mirror and said, ‘Wow, I don’t know if I can do this anymore.’ When you put in that much effort and don’t get any of the results you want, it can be awfully frustrating.

“As a coach, you can never project any insecurities. You have to show absolute confidence in the belief that what you’re doing is right. So you stick to your guns and stay with the general philosophy you believe will work.”

In their first three matches, the Anteaters (3-2) established a host of firsts for the Read regime: Most victories in a season. First victories over Pepperdine and Loyola Marymount. Longest winning streak. And most high-fives and ear-to-ear grins in a season.

“My first year, we were very limited in what we could do,” Read said. “I had just come from coaching the national team and my expectations were different than the level of talent. But we played hard and improved.

“Last year, we had almost all new players. We were young and made mistake after mistake. If you compare a video of us last year and this year, you don’t even recognize the players.”

How far have the Anteaters progressed? Well, they’re No. 10 in the nation, cracking the top 10 for the first time in school history. But a better indicator for Read was the Feb. 3 five-game victory over Loyola Marymount, a team that won six consecutive games to sweep Irvine in last season’s series.

“One of those games last year, they beat us 15-0,” Read said. “They had the exact same lineup on the floor this year. That, more than anything, tells us we’ve come a long way.”

Read says his goal is to make postseason play, which would probably require 10 victories in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation. Given the Anteaters’ winning percentage over the past two seasons, that would take a decade.

“The biggest thing about this group is that they believe,” Read said. “Right now, they are as confident as any team I’ve ever coached.”

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Basement blues: Ten of the top 11 teams in the national rankings are members of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, which goes a long way toward explaining Irvine’s 2-36 record in conference over the last two seasons.

“It’s like we play in the volleyball version of the ACC,” senior opposite hitter Leland Quinn said. “Unfortunately, we’re Wake Forest.”

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Quinn medicine: Quinn’s return to form has been a key a factor in Irvine’s rise to respectability. Quinn, who played in only 25 games--with a torn rotator cuff--last season, leads the Anteaters in kills and is also their best front-line defensive player.

“Leland is very important to us--first of all because of his play--but also because of how he celebrates after a play,” Read said. “It’s never in a bad way, but if he makes a good play, he celebrates with his team. And if somebody else makes a good play, he celebrates with his team.”

Quinn, who played at Ocean View, wants to make sure his teammates have fun.

“I tell the guys that there simply is no fear of losing,” he says. “We’re not basketball players, you know, they’re all one bad break away from the NBA. We don’t carry that persona. We’re college athletes and we’re here to have fun.”

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Set-up guy: Senior setter Jason Hinchman has been a steadying influence and his performance so far this season has ranged from “good to excellent,” according to Read.

“He’s playing like a senior should,” Read said. “He’s always been court smart and he worked really hard this summer to improve physically. His job is to set the right guy at the right time and his decision-making has been very good.

“If we pass well, then he makes the right decision nine times out of 10. Then it’s up to the other guy to finish.”

Notes

The men’s basketball team, mired in a three-game losing streak, plays host to San Jose State and Pacific in a crucial homestand this week. The Anteaters, who won three games in the Big West tournament last season before running out of gas and coming up short in the championship game, are hoping to avoid playing on the first day of the tournament when the last four teams in the final regular-season standings play to reduce the field to eight.

Irvine, tied for eighth place with Cal State Fullerton at 4-9, will have to overtake two teams in its last five regular-season games. UNLV (5-6), UC Santa Barbara (6-6) and Pacific (7-5) are still within striking distance. The Anteaters finish the season on the road against Santa Barbara, Long Beach State and Fullerton. . . . Junior forward Shaun Battle is making the most of his playing time lately. He has made 14 of 21 shots from the field and grabbed 15 rebounds in the last six games while averaging only 11 minutes per game.