Eater's Crush the Bruins

From the Daily Pilot:
http://www.dailypilot.com/articles/2007/03/10/sports/dpt-ucivolley10.txt
Published Saturday, March 10, 2007 1:06 AM PST
Sports
UC Irvine sweeps UCLA
VOLLEYBALL: Anteaters get 16 kills from Matt Webber for win over Bruins, who include Perrine and Diefenbach.
By Matt Szabo

IRVINE — Before a UC Irvine men's volleyball school record crowd of 3,612, freshman opposite Cole Reinholm got another chance.

Reinholm had just committed consecutive attack errors late in the second game for No. 2-ranked UC Irvine, allowing No. 5 UCLA to pull within 27-24.

Two points later, the lead was down to a single point, and Anteaters Coach John Speraw called timeout.

Then, Reinholm responded, delivering a kill down the line.

"[Speraw] was just telling me to keep the ball in the court," Reinholm said. "It's things I know I need to do. Just be aggressive and go after it."

The Anteaters made sure the defending national champion Bruins never got a similar second chance, cruising in the third game for a 30-26, 30-28, 30-21 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation sweep Friday at Bren Events Center.

UC Irvine (20-3, 14-3 in conference) has now won eight matches in a row since losing to Pacific on Feb. 10.

"I think he needed that, and we needed it," Speraw said of Reinholm's kill, one of three on the night. "He is far from reaching his peak at this point, and he knows that and he's working hard. This team still has so much room to improve.

"I'm excited about that. Our best volleyball's ahead of us."

Matt Webber had a team-high 16 kills and fellow senior David Smith added eight for the Anteaters, who trailed just once in the match against the Bruins (12-9, 9-8), at 1-0 in the second game.

Smith, who came into the match leading the MPSF with a .556 hitting percentage, bettered that against UCLA with his .636 mark. He committed just one attack error in 11 attempts.

"He's gotten over the hump of being a great player," Speraw said. "He's always had the potential to do that, and he's just realized it."

Jayson Jablonsky had seven kills, Aaron Harrell had a team-high seven block assists and Brian Thornton tallied 33 assists for UCI.

But the match also had a strong local feel for the visitors from Westwood. UCLA sophomore middle blocker Jamie Diefenbach, a Newport Harbor High product, had six kills.

Bruins redshirt freshman middle blocker Brett Perrine, also from Newport Harbor High, had seven kills, which was second on UCLA behind Steve Klosterman's 21.

Current Sailors senior Weston Dunlap also committed to UCLA recently.

In high school, Diefenbach said he and Perrine really only played together for about one season due to various injures. But, on the Bruins, they are making up for lost time.

"It's really fun for me and Brett to play together again," Diefenbach said. "It's fun to be on the same team. It was an awesome experience [to win the NCAA title] last year. We still have a ways to go this year, so we still have to get better."

The Bruins faltered with their serves all match long, committing 24 service errors compared to only 11 for UCI.

But Speraw, who played at UCLA and was also an assistant coach there before heading to UCI, and the Anteaters would take the mishaps.

The Anteaters also swept UCLA on Jan. 6, in the championship match of the Elephant Bar tournament at UCSB.

"I expected a five-gamer here," Speraw said. "I just think that UCLA didn't play their best volleyball match. They made a lot of serving errors, and a lot of key guys were not on their game. I think the next time we face them, they'll be a much different team."

And as for the Anteaters' winning streak, what winning streak?

"We're not counting the wins in a row," Webber said. "What we've done so far this season is done. We have to focus on the next match."

UCI plays host to No. 6 Penn State on Wednesday at Crawford Court.