Dake Helps His Setting by Hitting the Beach

Kevin Dake needed to learn to relax last summer, so he went to the beach.

No shirt, no shoes, but plenty of service--on the volleyball court. He wasn’t there to frolic in the surf.

Dake, a senior at UC Irvine, was affectionately known as “pitchfork hands” last season. Not the worst nickname in the world, unless you happen to be a setter in volleyball.

No one, though, has tossed that nom de plume at him this season. Dake has been a big reason for the Anteaters’ rise.

The improvement started at the beach.

“I learned how to play stronger and a learned how to play more aggressively by playing beach doubles,” said Dake, who attended Woodbridge High. “Mostly, I learned how to relax and stay focused.”

It wasn’t that Dake’s mind would meander last season. It was just all the duties involved with being a setter caused stress.

“I would get too anxious,” Dake said. “I would start thinking about what I was going to do and the butterflies would start. It still happens sometimes.”

Not as frequently, though a few may pop up this week.

The 14th-ranked Anteaters (8-3, 5-3 in Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) play No. 1 UCLA Thursday in Pauley Pavilion and then host No. 3 Brigham Young twice next week. All three matches will be difficult. But, then, a year ago, playing La Verne was difficult. Now it’s not.

Dake labored last season, as did his teammates. First-year Coach Charlie Brande brought a philosophy of personal responsibility and didn’t always tread lightly. It took some time to adjust.

Although he was Branded “pitchfork hands,” Dake realized it wasn’t personal.

“Charlie was pretty hard on me last year,” Dake said. “He was trying to get me mentally stronger.”

Said Brande: “He still has some moments, but he has obviously improved. No one in this program works harder. He is the one guy in this whole group that absolutely lives volleyball.

“People would ask me, ‘How can you say he has hands like pitchforks?’ Well, he did. Now we realize it and could figure out how to solve the problem.”

Dake’s first idea was to change positions, but that wasn’t part of Brande’s plan. So Dake went to the beach and played with several partners in triple-A tournaments--a notch below pro beach volleyball.

“It didn’t matter where we finished in the tournament,” Dake said. “That was not why I was there. I played with a lot of different guys so I could get used to setting for different styles. But mainly I used the tournaments to focus.

“Last year, I wasn’t a great setter. I’m a different person now.”

*

The resurgence of point guard Megan Stafford, and with her the Anteater women’s basketball team, has been a two-part project.

First, there was her shooting, something that wasn’t pretty to watch at the start of the season.

“I have never had a slump like that,” Stafford said. “I have had bad nights before, but never a bad month. I knew that would change.”

She also became more aggressive. For that, she got a good dose of first-year assistant coach Francine Moreno, who has practiced with the team.

Moreno played at New Mexico State from 1992-96. She seemed to take a meat-clever approach to guarding Stafford, who would respond in kind. Moreno, though, said she was a “finesse player” in college. “Yeah, I believe that,” Stafford said.

It had a positive effect.

“Megan has become more physical in her game and that has helped,” Coach Mark Adams said. “Of course, sometimes, she still thinks she is guarding Francine and gets in foul trouble.”

*

The men’s basketball team, with its goal of reaching the Big West Conference tournament, can do it the easy way--just beat UC Santa Barbara Thursday--or the hard way--help from others.

With four teams tied for second and Santa Barbara a game back, no one is assured of anything. Scenarios are too numerous to list.

“We have to go out and work hard,” guard Jason Flowers said. “We can’t win without the effort. We don’t have that kind of team.”

*

So what does a golfer do when he comes home to be honored? He plays golf.

Jerry Wisz, a member of Irvine’s 1975 NCAA Division II championship team, was inducted into the school’s athletic hall of fame Saturday. On Friday, he brought together five of the six team members from 1975, along with other former Anteater golfers, and the group played at Coto de Caza.

“We’ve never had a reunion of that team and we all went our separate ways after we won, so we never got to celebrate,” Wisz said Saturday.

John Shock, who played in 1976, and Steve Robertson (1974) won the two-man scramble.

“A lot of us don’t play golf much anymore,” said Wisz, 44, the director of golf at the Alhambra golf course. “We just got 12 guys together and had a nice afternoon.”

*

Former UCI basketball Coach Bill Mulligan also was honored. He and the other inductees were brought to midcourt at Saturday’s Irvine-Pacific game. When Mulligan left the court, current Coach Pat Douglass put his arm around him, and the two looked up at the scoreboard.

There were 3 minutes 30 seconds left in the first half and Pacific was leading, 25-22.

“I told Bill that his teams would have had 22 points in the first five minutes,” Douglass said.

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Coming Attractions

Key events this week for UC Irvine:

* Women’s tennis at Long Beach State at 2 p.m. Wednesday. The Anteaters are 2-0 in Big West Conference play.

* Men’s basketball at UC Santa Barbara at 7 p.m. Thursday and at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo at 2 p.m. Saturday. A victory over Santa Barbara puts the Anteaters in the Big West Conference tournament.

* Women’s basketball hosts UC Santa Barbara at 7 p.m. Thursday and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo at 2 p.m. Sunday. Santa Barbara leads the Western Division, Irvine is second.

* Men’s volleyball at UCLA at 7 p.m. Thursday. The No. 1-ranked Bruins lead the series, 19-0.

* Men’s tennis hosts UC Santa Barbara at noon Saturday. Both teams are undefeated in conference play.

* Men’s and women’s track and field competes in the Rossi Relays on Saturday at Claremont-Mudd-Scripps. Field events begin at 12:15 p.m., running events at 1:15 p.m.

* Golf opens its season in the San Diego State/Aldila Classic at the Carlton Oaks Country Club Saturday and Sunday.