UCLA
Penn St
UCLA Wins in Five Against Penn State
January 18, 2001 | Men's Volleyball
Jan. 18, 2001
The fifth-ranked UCLA men's volleyball team survived another five-game match Thursday, defeating Penn State, 3-2, in the 7th Annual Outrigger Hotels Invitational, hosted by the University of Hawai'i at the Stan Sheriff Center.
The Bruins (3-2) won 30-27, 30-28, 24-30, 19-30, 15-5 in two hours and 29 minutes. The Nittany Lions, four-game losers to Hawai'i on Wednesday night, fell to 1-2.
Junior Ian Burnham, in his first career start, pounded 17 kills and served three aces with six digs and three total blocks. Junior Matt Komer added 15 kills (.417) and five digs.
Sophomore Carlos Guerra led Penn State with 18 kills, followed by sophomore Zeljko Koljesar's 17 kills.
Penn State committed 16 of its 25 service errors in the first two games, and watched as both games slipped away at match point because of its serving mistakes. In Game 1, the Nittany Lions out-hit the Bruins .240 (10-4-25) to .290 (16-7-31), out-blocked them 4-3.5 and recorded 10 digs to the Bruins eight. But their service errors gave the Bruins 10 points, including the game when setter Jose Quinones served into the net at 29-27.
In Game 2, the Bruins improved after Head Coach Al Scates substituted sophomore Rich Nelson for senior Dan Conners at the setter position. UCLA raised its hitting percentage to .290 and held PSU to .222. Burnham and Komer combined for 16 kills in this game. With the Bruins leading 29-28, PSU's Kevin Hodge served out to give the Bruins a 2-0 lead.
Penn State eliminated many of its unforced errors in the next two games and, like Wednesday night, the Bruins' passing game faltered in Game 4. Suddenly, the match was tied 2-2 and Penn State owned the momentum.
Following a block by Koljesar that gave PSU a 1-0 lead to open Game 5, the Bruins scored nine of the next 10 points to take a 9-2 lead. Four blocks, an ace by Nelson, kills by Komer and senior Adam Naeve and a pair of PSU errors accounted for the points in this run. The Nittany Lions trimmed the deficit to 10-5, but the Bruins scored the final five points on two blocks, an ace by Burnham, a kill by Komer and a service error by Koljesar.
On Friday, the Bruins will attempt to win their fourth straight Outrigger title by defeating the host Hawai'i Warriors. First serve is scheduled for 7 p.m. PST with former UCLA All-Americans Paul Nihipali and Peter Ehrman calling the action from courtside on uclabruins.com.
