by Rosie Sinapi
Editor in Chief
Halfway through the season, the University of La Verne men’s volleyball team is picking up the pace as they head toward hard-hitting University of California, San Diego next Tuesday.
The Leos rest this weekend, recuperating after back-to-back wins over Pomona-Pitzer and Cal Poly Pomona Tuesday night at home.
“We look to match up fairly well against them,” said Head Coach Don Flora. “If we can push the Top 10 (Division I) schools, it will be good for us.”
San Diego has yet to win a match this season. They do have several hard spikers on the team. Tyson Kerr leads UCSD in kills per game with 4.09 and has had 49 digs for the season. Teammate Tom Black has 154 kills total for the season. In order to beat UCSD, the Leopards will have to stop Kerr and Black.
“We spend a lot of time on point scoring,” said Flora. “What we need is for our blocking to get better and to become more intense…if we do this, we will beat San Diego.”
La Verne is coming off a five-hour doubleheader against the Sagehens and Broncos. The Leopards took both matches to the max, winning both in rally scoring, 11-15, 15-6, 9-15, 15-13 and 15-13 against Pomona and 5-15, 15-9, 15-13, 13-15 and 15-7 against Cal Poly.
The spikers looked sharp in the first match against Pomona. Taking no time for rest, senior Scott Duong came out fast, positioning the ball for a good set by sophomore Ray Garza and the kill by freshman J.R. Gonsalves.
Providing the first points of the game, the Leos were unable to hold their lead and lost the first game. Game two of the first match provided a stronger La Verne defensive and offensive rally. Senior Kevin Graves provided for four kills and two blocks.
While game two was an easy win for La Verne, they lost their fire in the next one, losing against the strong arms of Sagehens Doug Frey and Austin Keys. While La Verne did provide defense, they lacked the offense to score.
Luckily for ULV, they are comeback kids and that is what they did in the last two games of the match to overcome the Sagehens. Improvement was seen when Flora made a line-up change in the middle of the game to rest weary freshmen Garrison Chaffee and Derek Boyle. Senior Jason Sigala and freshman Joel Harworth provided a much needed energy boost for the Leopards.
With their next competitors looking on, La Verne extinguished the Sagehens with the help of Frey, who hit the ball out of bounds for the Leo win.
“When we click, I don’t think anyone can stop us,” said Garza, who set 63 times during the first match. “When we play great, we play at our full potential.”
Cal Poly blasted away with three unanswered points to start the second match of the Leopard’s doubleheader. Harworth and Sigala provided the Leo’s only energy.
“Joel came in and blocked the ball,”said Flora. He went on to add that Harworth’s performance was stronger due to his sitting out most of the first match.Even with the efforts of Harworth and Sigala, the Leopards lost the first game, 15-5.
Flora called for another roster change, replacing Gonsalves with Chaffee and moved Harworth to the back line. Unfortunately, this did not help the Leopards, who at one point were losing 5-0.
“There’s no excuse to not playing well,” said Duong. “We’ve got to play like a Division I school and sometimes we don’t.”
La Verne managed more confidence in the second game. Duong came back to spike the Leopards back into the game by providing a block against Cal Poly’s Mike Laguna and then with a series of aces, moving the Leos to within two. Although Duong came back with a vengeance, it was the total team confidence that gave the Leopards the boost to buck the Broncos.
The Leos won the third game in the same manner, with Duong providing kills and Chaffee and Graves assisting with killer blocks.
If there were any disappointments in the match, it was the fourth game. Running neck-and-neck with the Broncos during the game, the Leopards fell flat at the end, allowing several costly errors to give Cal Poly the win.
La Verne found no trouble in stopping the Broncos in rally scoring. Although it was a team effort, Graves provided several blocks and three kills including the game winner.
