Bruins fall to UA club volleyball team
Traveling to Santa Barbara, Calif., for a Division I tournament, the UA men's club volleyball team was hoping to win enough matches to qualify for competition beyond pool play. However, they did not expect to defeat the defending NCAA champion UCLA Bruins in the process.
In a quarterfinal match of the UC-Santa Barbara Collegiate Invitational, the Wildcats defeated the defending Division I champions in a best of three series.
After losing the first game 15-3, the Wildcats came up victorious in the next two, 15-8, 15-9.
"In the second game, we came up really relaxed and ended up with the win," assistant coach Skip Greenberg said. "When we won it in the third game, it just seemed that we had an answer for everything the UCLA players would bring at us."
The Wildcats successfully advanced to the championship bracket to play UCLA when they finished their pool play Friday with a 3-1 record. The UA men downed Quincy College of Illinois 15-11, 15-7, Cal Poly San Louis Obispo 15-7, 15-12 and UC Davis 10-15, 15-4, 15-9.
In their last match of the pool play Friday, the Wildcats faced the UCSB Gauchos, who finished last season with a No. 13 national ranking. Early in the match, the Arizona men came out strong, posting a 15-7 win, but then lost the next two matches 8-15, 9-15.
"After finishing up with pool play, I was really impressed with our group of guys," Greenberg said. "Once we had completed our goal of making it into the advanced bracket, I think the team felt as if they could have won the entire tournament."
Once UA had defeated UCLA, it advanced to the semifinals to play Long Beach State, which finished the 1998 season with ranked No. 5. Again, the UA men began the match on a strong note by winning 15-8.
"The final games of the Long Beach State match were tough," head coach Steve Carlat said. "In the end, we lost in a squeaker."
The Arizona men lost 13-15 and 8-15.
The final competition of the tournament for the Wildcats was in the third place match against Cal-State Northridge. Northridge defeated Arizona 7-15, 15-8, 15-9.
Junior middle blocker Vince Rooney was named to the all-tournament team for his play over the weekend. No official statistics were kept in the matches, but Greenberg said that Rooney's play was "spectacular."
"If this weekend proved anything, it showed the country what Arizona volleyball is capable of," Rooney said. "By beating UCLA, we proved that we can play with just about anybody in the country."
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