The NCAA News - News and Features

May 12, 1997

Double-checked:

Stanford upsets UCLA -- twice -- on way to men's volleyball title

Stanford climbed the mountain twice in a week, and both times UCLA was in its way.

Just days after winning the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation title by upsetting top-ranked UCLA, Stanford knocked the Bruins off again with a dramatic five-game win in the title match of the National Collegiate Men's Volleyball Championship May 3 at Ohio State.

After frittering away a two-game lead, Stanford regrouped in the rally-scored fifth game to deny the two-time defending national-champion Bruins and coach Al Scates an unprecedented 17th crown. Stanford all-American Mike Lambert planted five kills in the deciding game to complete a 15-7, 15-10, 9-15, 6-15, 15-13 victory for the Cardinal's first title.

A spent Lambert summed up the effort afterward.

"That game definitely took everything out of me," he said. "There is no short cut. We knew we had to dig real deep. And that is what the fifth game was all about."

It didn't look as if Stanford would be behind the eight ball early on. The Cardinal vaulted to a 2-0 lead with relative ease, hitting better than .300 in each game. But a seasoned UCLA squad turned the tables in games three and four, putting together a 10-2 run in the former and holding Stanford to a mere .026 hitting percentage in the latter to knot the match at two games apiece.

"It would have been easy to go in the tank and fold it up at that point," Scates said of the early deficit. "A lot of things weren't working for us in the beginning, but we just kept going for it. We improved steadily throughout the match."

"I thought their great passing allowed them to get back into the match," Stanford coach Ruben Nieves said. "And their digging allowed them to score points. Our guys took a lot of swings, and somehow their defenders found a way to pump them up. I thought those were the two biggest factors in the match."

The fifth game featured nine ties, the last at 13-13. But UCLA all-American Paul Nihipali's next serve was too deep, and Stanford's Matt Fuerbringer and Mike Hoefer combined for a block on championship point to secure the Cardinal victory and end a 27-4 campaign.

UCLA (27-3) was top-ranked most of the season, but its conference-title loss to the Cardinal dropped the Bruins to the second seed in the championship, pitting them against Penn State in what became a marathon semifinal match.

The Bruins' 15-13, 13-15, 15-4, 10-15, 15-10 win was not secured until Adam Naeve's second of three kills put the Bruins up 8-5 in the rally-scored fifth game. The Nittany Lions (29-2), who were making a seventh straight tournament appearance, did not get within two the rest of the way.

"Penn State has the most sophisticated offense we've seen all year," Scates said. "They run so many plays and they're very hard to figure out."

"We knew that Penn State was a great team," UCLA's Nihipali said. "Even though they had a rough game three, we knew they would come back fired up for game four. And we just played our game -- we played at a steady level."

Nihipali had 27 kills for the Bruins to go with Naeve's team-high 28. Penn State's Ivan Contreras, the 1997 American Volleyball Coaches Association player of the year, topped all players with 38 kills in 74 attempts.

Stanford, meanwhile, breezed into the championship match by sweeping Ball State, 15-6, 15-9, 15-10. Lambert's 19 kills paced the Cardinal attack.

Ball State (27-8) was making its 14th semifinal appearance, second only to UCLA's 20, but the Cardinals have yet to advance to the title match.

"We were scrambling all night," Ball State mentor Don Shondell said. "Our serving was not very consistent -- we didn't get any kind of jump serves like we did during the season.

"But Stanford is a fine team and we knew that coming in. We thought we were fully prepared -- we thought we could beat this team."

CHAMPIONSHIP

UCLA -- K -- E -- TA -- Pct. -- SA -- DG -- BS

Brandon Taliaferro -- 5 -- 1 -- 12 -- .333 -- 0 -- 12 -- 0

Eric Vallely -- 0 -- 0 -- 0 -- .000 -- 0 -- 1 -- 0

Trong Nguyen -- 0 -- 0 -- 0 -- .000 -- 0 -- 2 -- 0

Paul Nihipali -- 29 -- 10 -- 59 -- .322 -- 0 -- 10 -- 0

Fred Robins -- 11 -- 10 -- 33 -- .030 -- 1 -- 10 -- 0

Danny Farmer -- 5 -- 1 -- 9 -- .444 -- 1 -- 2 -- 0

Tom Stillwell -- 2 -- 2 -- 8 -- .000 -- 0 -- 3 -- 0

Adam Naeve -- 18 -- 5 -- 34 -- .382 -- 1 -- 3 -- 0

Charlie Jackson -- 0 -- 0 -- 0 -- .000 -- 0 -- 0 -- 0

Ben Moselle -- 11 -- 10 -- 32 -- .031 -- 0 -- 5 -- 0

Andor Gyulai -- 3 -- 1 -- 5 -- .400 -- 0 -- 1 -- 0

Totals -- 84 -- 40 -- 192 -- .229 -- 3 -- 49 -- 0

Stanford -- K -- E -- TA -- Pct. -- SA -- DG -- BS

Jeremy Bart -- 0 -- 0 -- 0 -- .000 -- 0 -- 1 -- 0 --

Tyler Neal -- 0 -- 0 -- 0 -- .000 -- 0 -- 2 -- 0

Stewart Chong -- 1 -- 0 -- 1 -- 1.000 -- 1 -- 10 -- 0

Tad Hoffman -- 0 -- 0 -- 0 -- .000 -- 0 -- 0 -- 0

Keenan Whitehurst -- 17 -- 1 -- 26 -- .615 -- 0 -- 4 -- 2

Mike Lambert -- 27 -- 18 -- 73 -- .123 -- 2 -- 9 -- 0

Devin Poolman -- 0 -- 1 -- 1 -- .000 -- 0 -- 0 -- 0

Mike Hoefer -- 9 -- 4 -- 18 -- .278 -- 0 -- 5 -- 1

Andy Witt -- 19 -- 12 -- 42 -- .167 -- 1 -- 17 -- 0

Matt Fuerbringer -- 12 -- 9 -- 36 -- .083 -- 0 -- 9 -- 0

Totals -- 85 -- 45 -- 197 -- .203 -- 4 -- 57 -- 3

UCLA -- 7 -- 10 -- 15 -- 15 -- 13

Stanford -- 15 -- 15 -- 9 -- 6 -- 15