UCLA Gives Scates 16th NCAA Title

UCLA’s domination in home NCAA championship volleyball matches was put to the test midway of the fourth game Saturday against Hawaii.

After a red-card gift point the Bruins gave the Rainbows for disputing a call, UCLA trailed, 9-7, with Hawaii ahead in games, 2-1.

Since panicking is not a trademark of a team coached by Al Scates, UCLA responded to rally and to win the fourth game, 17-15, then win the rally-score fifth game, 15-12, before a crowd of 7,688 at Pauley Pavilion as the Bruins stretched their unbeaten home NCAA tournament record to 24-0.

The title was UCLA’s second in a row and third in the last four years as Scates won his 16th overall to move into a tie for the most NCAA championships in one sport. Dave Williams, Houston’s golf coach, also has 16 national titles.

“I knew that we were going to win if could could take it to a fifth game,” said UCLA senior setter Stein Metzger, the American Volleyball Coaches Assn. co-player of the year. “Throughout the entire fourth game, we kept saying that this is the game that will win the match.”

With nearly 4,000 Hawaii fans in attendance, the Bruins (26-5) would not have came back without the clutch play of junior Paul Nihipali, who had struggled for much of the first four games after leading the Bruins all season in kills.

Nihipali, who had set a school record with 52 kills in a match during the season, had played so bad early that Scates benched him for much of the third game. But Nihipali stepped up when the Bruins needed him the most as he came up with seven kills in the fourth game and then six in the deciding fifth.

“We knew that Paul would come out of it sooner or later,” said UCLA’s Tom Stillwell, who finished with 22 kills and a .500 attack percentage. “He’s too good of a player not to.”

Keeping the Bruins in the match were Brian Wells, who had 17 kills and 11 digs to go along with several key serving stretches, Metzger, who surprisingly had 10 kills to go along with 86 assists, and Stillwell, who had a game-high 11 blocks.

“This was a match I suppose could have gone either way, it just didn’t go the way we wanted,” said Hawaii Coach Mike Wilton, whose Rainbows finished the season 27-3. “I thought we had our chance once we caught them in the fourth game, but we didn’t seem to make the plays we needed to at the end.”

After UCLA rallied from a 13-11 deficit and won the first game, 15-13, Hawaii stormed back to win the next two games behind the play of Yuval Katz, who was named the tournament’s most valuable player.

Katz, who had 47 kills in a championship-match record 94 attempts, kept the Bruins off balance with his spiking and game-high 14 digs. He helped the Rainbows take Games 2 and 3, 15-12 and 15-9, as Hawaii appeared ready to dethrone UCLA.

In the end, however, Katz was not able to do it all himself and once the Rainbows began the fifth game with their serve lineup, UCLA took an early two-point lead and was on its way.

“As soon as Paul came around, I knew that we’d win,” Metzger said. “Then once we went ahead in the fifth, their serves started to get easy for us to handle.”

Metzger and Stillwell both made the all-tournament team, along with Penn State’s Kevin Hourican, Hawaii’s Jason Ring and Katz.