‘Eaters shake off boredom

IRVINE — Bored is how Coach John Speraw had described his UC Irvine men’s volleyball team.

The mood troubled the fifth-year coach with the postseason around the corner.

“We’ve got a lot of seniors on the team and that shouldn’t be happening,” Speraw said. “Maybe I didn’t understand how much of an issue it was for us until the UCLA match.”

For one night, the attitude issue seemed to solve itself a week after allowing the Bruins to come back two games down to win. Those helping correct the third-ranked Anteaters’ frame of mind were Speraw’s four seniors, Matt Webber, Jayson Jablonsky, David Smith and Brian Thornton.

The Fab Four had no reason not to be fired up before Friday’s Mountain Pacific Sports Federation match against Long Beach State.

It was their last regular-season match at the Bren Events Center. After a pre-match ceremony honoring the four, they led the Anteaters to a 30-25, 30-21, 30-19 victory, ending any idea they can cruise into the MPSF championship tournament without any momentum.

Webber finished with a game-high 13 kills to go with three service aces, Jablonsky added 11 kills and three aces. Smith recorded four blocks, and Thornton had 41 assists and two blocks.

UCI (23-5, 16-5 in the MPSF) has the tournament’s No. 3 seed all locked up with one regular-season match remaining before the eight-team tournament starts on April 18.

Webber said knowing the team would be the third seed and open in the quarterfinals played into how the Anteaters’ approached the previous matches before Friday against the 49ers (11-17, 6-16). UCI lost in five games to No. 1 Pepperdine and No. 4 UCLA.

“We kind of got away from competing for a little bit,” Webber said. “There’s been some teams that haven’t been up to, that we feel, shouldn’t be up to par with us. But they’ve been playing well, and we haven’t been giving them the respect they deserve.

“Every single match from here on out is very important on our future.”

Webber showed his determination to lead UCI to its goal, the MPSF tournament championship. Without it, he said the Anteaters could possibly find themselves out of the four-team NCAA tournament.

Only two teams from the superior MPSF get berths. The two teams ahead of UCI are Pepperdine and No. 2 BYU.

By winning the regular-season conference title, Pepperdine is a shoo-in, leaving one spot open. Webber said UCI will most likely battle BYU, UCLA and UC Santa Barbara for it.

Speraw said the Anteaters will probably open with the MPSF’s hottest team in Hawaii.

“Hawaii’s won eight in a row, and [its] legitimately higher than a six seed, but [it] just started off the season [slow],” Speraw said. “Clearly, you might say a No. 3 [against a] No. 6 should win, but I think it’s a coin toss.”

It might depend if Speraw’s players are bored or excited.