Eager Ohio State Looking to Block UCLA’s Bid for 19th Title

When you’re UCLA, armed with 18 NCAA men’s volleyball championships and working on a sixth in eight years, reaching the national semifinals for the umpteenth time doesn’t raise any eyebrows.

The Bruins expect to win national championships. Always have, always will.

“We always have a lot of confidence going into the final four,” senior hitter Adam Naeve said.

Even in an up-and-down year, UCLA is again in contention as it meets Ohio State today at 5 p.m. at the Pyramid on the Long Beach State campus. Brigham Young plays Penn State in the second semifinal tonight.

To get to this round, UCLA (23-7) defeated Long Beach State and Hawaii to claim the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation championship.

At the NCAA tournament, the Bruins have reigned. They’re 22-0 in the semifinals.

Ohio State at least got to the final last year before being pushed aside by the Bruins in three games. The Buckeyes (21-6), winners of the Midwest Intercollegiate Volleyball Assn. title, realize that defeating UCLA is an imposing task, having dropped all 13 meetings.

“We all kind of know that UCLA hasn’t lost in a semifinal,” senior middle blocker Todd Hill said. “We all know we haven’t beaten UCLA. But that could play to our advantage. I’d like to be on the first team that does it and break the mystique.”

A major change this season has been the rally scoring format that is used internationally but is in its first year on the collegiate level.

The scoring format has no sideouts and instead counts each play as a point up to 30 in each game. Teams still must win games by at least two points. A decisive fifth game is played to 15.

The rule change has put a premium on accurate serving and puts a greater penalty on mistakes. With the many upsets taking place this year, Ohio State Coach Pete Hanson believes the rule has made things tougher on dominant teams and hopes it helps the Buckeyes tonight.

“I think it’s going to bring a new twist, there’s no doubt about that,” said Hanson, whose Buckeyes have reached the semifinals six times in 17 seasons. “You can play great for 28 points and it won’t matter. It can really penalize a couple of bad plays at the wrong time.”

Scates agrees that the new format has given added hope to underdogs. But he isn’t about to change his attacking philosophy, citing a match at USC this season in which Mark Williams served four consecutive aces with the Bruins down, 29-25, in a game.

In short, UCLA serves to get points, not to keep the ball in play. The Bruins have 223 aces, an average of 1.9 a game.

“You serve a ball into the net and it’s a point for the other team, so serving becomes a big factor,” he said. “But we’ve got four jump servers and we’ll just rip it anyway.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Down to Four

* What: The NCAA volleyball

championships.

* Who: UCLA vs. Ohio State; Brigham Young vs. Penn State.

* When: Semifinals, today, 5 and 7:30 p.m.; Final, Saturday, 4 p.m.

* Where: The Pyramid in Long Beach.

* Tickets: Pyramid box office, (562) 985-4949.