The UCI Men’s Club Volleyball A team (3-8, 3-8) placed first in the Division I Bronze bracket at the Southern California Collegiate Volleyball League (SCCVL) Championships at Clava Volleyball Club on April 2.
In a tournament of nearly 30 collegiate teams, the UCI-A team finished 2-2 to stand atop the Bronze bracket. In a grueling seven-hour tournament with back-to-back matches, the club team pushed through to gain their rightful place at No. 1.
The morning’s first match began against Arizona State University at 8 a.m. This strenuous initial matchup tested the team’s defensive abilities as ASU-A (20-3, 6-2) dished out some massive swings. Unfortunately for the ‘Eaters, the ASU offense was too fast-paced to get much traction. The Irvine squad struggled to put up a strong block on the speedy ASU hitters. As a result, ASU took the 2-0 (25-22, 25-15) victory over the Anteaters and ultimately placed first in the Silver bracket.
Following, the Irvine team promptly continued to play against San Diego State University; the top team from SCCVL’s standings as per the previous league tournament at UCLA on March 26.
SDSU-A (12-5, 8-3) affirmed its top league ranking with its powerful offensive strategy that caused UCI-A to scramble for passes. Without these passes, the ‘Eaters couldn’t return many strong swings. Although Irvine picked up their defense towards the end of the match, they ultimately failed to get any good runs. SDSU terminated UCI 2-0 (25-22, 25-22) and continued to the Gold bracket playoffs, where they finished second behind UCLA-A (9-2, 9-2).
Even after these two losses, the team was hungry to dominate in the next few playoff matches. Facing off against the CSUN Matadors (5-13, 1-9), a newfound drive to win was prevalent in the energy of each team member.
Club president and senior opposite hitter Hamilton Wall remarked on his team’s drive and ability to put past losses behind them.
“We never walked away from a lost match with our heads down,” Wall said. “We always kept the drive to win even if we did not win the matchup. We tried to leave the bad games behind us, focus on what we could fix as individual players and as a team, and apply that to our next matchup.”
CSUN-A provided an excellent opportunity for the Anteaters to display their desire to win. This was Irvine’s only match where they competed in the full three sets. With a constant exchange of points for the entirety of the game, it was apparent that the ‘Eaters had to amp up their offensive pressure.
The CSUN team played a very different game than Irvine’s previous opponents. They were scrappy but had a solid defense, making it difficult for Irvine to go on scoring runs. Pin hitters quickly became frustrated with back-to-back digs from the CSUN team. This called on the ‘Eaters to push past discouragement and dig deep in this semifinal round to put balls away.
With tough serves from behind the line backed by massive swings at the net, the Anteaters came together to pull a 3-1 (25-18, 18-25, 20-18) win from this close matchup and continued to the bronze bracket championship game.
The Anteaters faced off against Long Beach State in their next match. Only one game away from the championship title, the ‘Eaters knew what they had to do to triumph over LBSU-A (5-12, 1-10).
Club treasurer and senior libero Kevin Kujiraoka commented on the team cohesion during this final matchup, crediting the team’s ability to work together as the determining reason they could prevail in this championship match.
“I could finally feel the team working together on instinct,” Kujiraoka said. “Team communication, instinct and coordination were at their peak that game.”
UCI fought hard to earn each point both on passing and hitting. Although Long Beach came out of the gates with great defense, Irvine had something they lacked: a strong leader.
Wall praised junior opposite hitter Evan Marks for guiding the team to their 2-0 (25-23, 25-15) victory with his leadership on and off the court.
“Marks helped lead the team to their bronze championship with his empowering speeches during huddles, his never-ending positivity during tough matchups and his motivation to win,” Wall said. “He performed well on the court and did an amazing job on the back-end with helping players correct mistakes and even noticing when he himself could have done something better. Truly amazing.”
Marks, social chair of the Men’s Club Volleyball program, proved to be a crucial player on the court, leading his team in the most number of blocks. Marks later commented on what we should expect to see from the club team as they prepare for nationals next week, April 14-16.
“We are going to try to focus on building connections with players,” Marks said. “Chemistry is very key in volleyball, and we’ll look to hone it in on and off the court before nationals.”
As the program prepares for next week’s tournament for the National Collegiate Volleyball Federation (NCVF), UCI can expect a similar, if not a more powerful, drive to win. Still, they will have to work hard in their next few practices to create much-needed solidarity.
Kujiraoka is excited to embark on the next few practices in preparation for nationals and affirms the need to establish chemistry between players as he has seen the limitless potential the team has as a cohesive unit.
“We really have some amazing talent both in physical ability as well as game IQ,” Kujiraoka said. “We will be working more to grow as a talented team, rather than a team of talented players.”
UCI will next play in the 2022 NCVF Collegiate Club Volleyball Championships at the Phoenix Convention Center in Arizona on Thursday, April 14.
Gina Johnson is a 2021-2022 Sports Co-Editor. She can be reached at sports@newuniversity.org.
