Stanford, UCLA
to battle for NCAA
volleyball title
Freshmen lead the Bruins
From staff and wire reports
past Penn State; Lambert is the
main man for CardinalCOLUMBUS, Ohio — Rarely are freshmen named All-Americans, but UCLA's Adam Naeve and Brandon Taliaferro earned second-team honors Wednesday. Last night, the first-year players proved they deserved the selections. Naeve, a 6-foot-10 hitter, had four of his team-high 28 kills in the deciding Game 5, and setter Taliaferro had 84 assists as the Bruins held off Penn State, 15-13, 13-15, 15-4, 10-15, 15-10, in the second semifinal of the NCAA men's volleyball tournament.
In the first semifinal, Stanford swept Ball State, 15-6, 15-9, 15-10, to advance to the title match for the third time since 1989. The Cardinal (26-3) take on the Bruins (24-4) at 1 p.m. tomorrow in a rematch of last Saturday's Mountain Pacific Sports Federation championship, won by Stanford.
"My feeling is that if we play well and the other team plays well, we're still going to win," said Cardinal coach Ruben Nieves after his team's 16th straight victory. "We have played very well the past two matches, a trend we hope continues for one more match."
Stanford has never won a national title, losing the 1989 final to UCLA and in 1992 to Pepperdine. UCLA is seeking its 17th NCAA title, which would give coach Al Scates more championships than any other collegiate coach in any sport. He is tied with Houston men's golf coach Dave Williams with 16 titles.
Scates said he didn't have to do much planning for Stanford.
"I've got a file this thick on them, so most of the work has already been done," Scates said. "Against them last week, our coaches knew what they (Stanford) were doing but we obviously could not communicate it to our players well enough to stop them."
The UCLA-Stanford matchup is the 24th all-West Coast final in the 28 years of the tournament. Last year, the Bruins outlasted Hawaii in five games.
Penn State (29-2), led by player of the year Ivan Contreras, righted itself from a lopsided loss in Game 3 and pulled away from a 10-10 tie in Game 4 by scoring the final four points. In Game 5, Naeve added an ace and a block for two points in rally scoring.
"I think we got all of our freshman jitters out of the way," Naeve said.
"It was just another game," Taliaferro said. "That's basically what it is. We've played a lot of games, although this is the biggest one."
Senior hitter Paul Nihipali added 27 kills for the two-time defending champions. Contreras had 38 kills in his final collegiate game.
"What a match!" Penn State coach Mark Pavlik gushed. "I think it was everything we kind of expected it to be."
The Nittany Lions stunned UCLA in five games in 1994 to become the only non-California team to win the NCAA title. In January, Penn State handed the Bruins their first-ever loss in a season opener during the Outrigger Hotels Invitational at the University of Hawaii's Special Events Arena.
The Nittany Lions had not lost since falling to Hawaii last January in that same tournament.
In the first semifinal, Mike Lambert and Matt Fuerbringer dominated at the net for the Cardinal. Stanford opened the match by scoring the first three points then, after Ball State went ahead, 4-3, the Cardinal outscored the Cardinals 11-2.
"The start of any match is critical," said Nieves. "We certainly put some doubts in their heads early."
Lambert, a Punahou graduate, had four of his match-high 19 kills in Game 1. Fuerbringer added 15 kills, giving the Cardinal two players with almost as many kills as the entire Ball State team (35).
Ball State, now 0-14 in NCAA semifinals, was unable to solve the Cardinal's block or their jumps serves.
"I don't think they've seen blocks like that all year," Lambert said.
"We thought Stanford might not come out playing that strongly, that maybe they might be looking forward to Penn State or UCLA in the final," said Ball State coach Don Shondell. "We felt we had a home-court advantage, since we come from the Midwest and had played a great game here at Ohio State on this court."
