Waves wipe out UC Irvine

IRVINE — “Under Pressure” by Queen and David Bowie blasted through the loudspeakers at Bren Events Center on Saturday night during a UC Irvine men’s volleyball timeout.

The Anteaters, ranked No. 1 in the country, were down two games to No. 5 Pepperdine and feeling that pressure.

The Waves’ Tom Hulse and Jonathan Winder, both 6-foot-8, made sure the tension didn’t let up. They combined for 21 block assists in Pepperdine’s shocking 30-26, 30-27, 30-23 sweep in a Mountain Pacific Sports Federation match.

The loss, in front of 1,439 fans, was the first of the season for UC Irvine (9-1, 5-1 in MPSF play).

“I don’t think we did a whole lot tonight,” UCI Coach John Speraw said. “We didn’t block as well as we should have, and we didn’t dig anything, and we hit poorly. We didn’t set as well as we need to, and we served poorly. We didn’t do anything.”

Winder did plenty for the Waves (5-1, 4-1). Four of his block assists came in the first game on Anteaters senior Jayson Jablonsky. The Sports Imports/AVCA National Player of the Week last week finished Saturday’s match with a minus-.100 attack percentage and just six kills.

“I’ve never seen him do that,” Speraw said of the attack percentage. “[Winder] got a bunch of stuffs on Jablonsky early and took him right out of the match. Jayson didn’t come back; usually he does.”

The Anteaters as a team had a .231 attack percentage, well below Pepperdine’s .412 mark.

The first game of the match was tied 10 times, the last time at 21-all. But Pepperdine’s Paul Carroll had three kills in his team’s last nine points, helping the Waves to the early lead.

UC Irvine led the second game as late as 26-25 on Aaron Harrell’s kill. Pepperdine then reeled off five of the next six points to end the game, sealing it when UCI senior Matt Webber’s kill attempt was long.

Webber finished with a team-high 16 kills, many of them set up by Brian Thornton, who had 35 assists.

“It’s always tough when any of our hitters doesn’t have a good night,” Webber said. “I don’t dare point the finger at Jablonsky, because he carries this team on his shoulders. We just all have to step up, and tonight we just settled instead of getting after it.”

The Waves led for most of the third game, extending it to 21-14 on a block by Hulse and Winder. UCI never got within three points after that. Pepperdine ended the match on a Carroll kill, also ending UCI’s hopes of a thrilling comeback like it had in overcoming a 2-0 deficit Jan. 20 against UC Santa Barbara.

Senior middle blocker David Smith had 10 kills for the Anteaters, Harrell had eight and Taylor Wilson added seven. Sophomore libero Nick Spittle had a career-high 10 digs, which led the team, in his second start.

Jablonsky did have three aces, which tied him for the UCI career mark of 96 set by Jimmy Pelzel from 2001-04.

“We’re a pretty small team, so [aggressive blocking] is something we’ll see a lot,” said Smith, whose hitting percentage was .643. “It’s just getting into that rhythm and finding the weaknesses. But [Pepperdine] did a really good job, and they’re hard to hit around sometimes.”

Webber said he thought the loss might actually do the Anteaters some good.

“In the past few weeks, we’ve taken for granted that we’re going to walk on the court and take a team,” he said. “We struggled against [UC] Santa Barbara [in the 3-2 win on Jan. 20], and we struggled against USC [in a 3-1 win on Jan. 24].

“Pepperdine got after it tonight, and we were nowhere near close to prepared. It showed.”

Speraw’s team lost in three games for the first time since falling to Long Beach State in the MPSF championship tournament semifinals last April. He said his team just had an off night Saturday.

“Our goal is to be better at the end of the year, and we can still do that,” Speraw said. “We just have to learn something from this match.”