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“We advance on our journey only when we face our goal, when we are confident and believe we are going to win out.”
These are the words of author Orison Swett Marden, though it’s doubtful Pepperdine’s men’s volleyball players often sit around reading his writings — maybe they do. But his philosophy is at the heart of their program, and regardless of their reading lists, they are familiar with his words.
Their journey began with eight seniors graduating and a half new starting line-up. Riding on a four-game winning streak, the Waves will take a road trip to Long Beach then San Diego this weekend, confident on reaching their goals.
After two tough conference wins over University of California Santa Barbara and California State University Northridge, the Waves have risen from No. 9 to a No. 4 American Volleyball Coaches Association ranking this week.
“The first two games we didn’t play as well as we should,” senior middle blocker Brad Keenan said. “Now that conference has started, we’ve played a lot better.”
And that showed last week when Pepperdine dominated Santa Barbara in the first game of the match, holding strong for the win in three games, 30-8, 30-28, 30-27.
Keenan said the team came out strong and continued to play hard. Santa Barbara started to pick up a little after the first game, but the Waves played consistently through the next two and preserved the win.
“I think they didn’t come ready to play right off the bat,” junior outside hitter Fred Winters said. “The last two games were pretty competitive, but it just seems later in the season we’ve just gotten on a roll.”
Keenan, who added 11 kills, two service aces and nine total blocks in Thursday’s game, agreed.
“They are a lot better than they used to be,” Keenan said. “We played hard though. We served well, passed well and blocked well in that game.”
Sophomore outside hitter Sean Rooney took a match-high total of 17 kills and recorded a .556 attack percentage, committing a scant two errors in 27 total attempts.
Next the Waves took on their third Mountain-Pacific Sports Federation match-up of the season, No. 5 ranked Northridge. Pepperdine prevailed in three games with convincing scores of 36-34, 30-19, 30-24.
“Northridge was a really good game,” Winters said. “They came ready. They’ve beaten a couple of good teams this year. The first game was really close, but in the second and third we just played better than them.”
Winters had the match-high total of 16 kills, leading the team right past the Matadors and to a current 3-0 conference record.
Sophomore Mike Gledhill tallied 10 kills, while Keenan also carried the team with eight kills, three service aces and six total blocks.
Pepperdine boasted a .418 attack percentage, limiting their local rivals to a .286 mark.
They now prepare for a road trip that will threaten a near perfect record of 5-1. The Waves will travel to Long Beach to test their four-game winning streak against the No. 5 49ers Friday night.
Winters said the team doesn’t plan on doing anything differently in its game at the Pyramid.
This is the consensus of the team.
“Long Beach is going to be a tough game,” Keenan said. “They have a much better team then they had last year, and we are playing there with their home crowd.”
Saturday, Pepperdine will travel to the home of last weekend’s Super Bowl to face University of California San Diego. The No. 15 Tritons may not be high in the polls, but their fast improvement has been recognized.
“Marv was telling us how they lost to UCLA, but they really should’ve won — they got ripped off with some calls,” Winters said. “They are way better than they were last year. A lot of teams think they can beat them, but whether they can actually do it . . .”
Keenan agrees that San Diego cannot be overlooked.
“This is the only year I ever remember seeing them ranked,” he said. “They’ve been taking every one in our conference in four or five games — they are a lot better than they’ve been in the past.”
As far as the Waves’ jump from No. 9 to No. 4 in the AVCA poll over the last week, Waves’ players don’t seem to feel the pressure.
“My entire career here we’ve always been ranked No. 1 at least one time during the season,” Winters said. “It isn’t really any added pressure at all, we’ve always been ranked high.”
Pepperdine’s volleyball teams are used to being in commanding positions, and know that numbers don’t mean anything.
“(The ranking) doesn’t really matter much to us,” Keenan said. “We started out the same way last year, ranked lower, we worked our way to the top . . . We get better every day, every practice.”
Submitted January 30, 2003
MALIBU, CA
