Don’t look now, but the youthful UCSB men’s volleyball team and its first-year head coach are playing much better than a team ranked 14th in the country.
The Gauchos dismantled No. 4 Long Beach State on Saturday at Rob Gym, winning the third-place match of the Elephant Bar tourney 30-25, 30-29, 30-26.
Local product Jeff Menzel was detonating the ball as usual, but also showed considerable accuracy in his hitting, putting away 18 kills with a hitting clip of .308. The Gauchos hit .323 as a team, and Scott Slaughter (10 kills, .625 avg) and Jake Rosener (10 kills, .412 avg) also had stellar offensive outputs.
“It’s mostly my mental game. Rick (McLaughlin) and Lee (Nelson) don’t work us physically as hard, but they’re really good at helping us feel more confident,” said Menzel. “It’s pretty much our coaches.”
McLaughlin, who’s off to a 2-1 start as the Gaucho head coach, wouldn’t claim responsibility.
“It’s all him,” he said of Menzel’s improvement. “He’s become a pretty focused guy, and we love it because we keep telling him what we need out of him to be our leader and he’s with us every step of the way. He’s really maturing.”
While the starting lineup is by no means set in stone, Menzel, setter Vince Devany, libero Andy McGuire and Slaughter in the middle have solidified their spots early on, according to McLaughlin.
All four are sophomores.
“We’re a young team and we’re going to keep getting better. We’re pretty even, and we’re going to need everyone to get where we need to be,” he said.
After jumping out to a 6-2 lead in the first set, Long Beach closed the gap and it stayed neck-and-neck down the stretch until a Slaughter block broke a 22-22 tie with a solo block. Rosener joined Slaughter on a roof for the next point and the Gauchos cruised from there, finishing on a kill in the middle by Sam Moisenco.
The Gauchos lost the first point in the second frame but got the next one and never trailed after that. Menzel put away kills on four of the final eight UCSB points to close it out. The Gauchos hit a whopping .600 in the set.
Game three was much closer, and the Gauchos fell behind 21-18 before a Long Beach service error and a pair of Menzel put-aways tied it up at 21 apiece. Tommy Pestolesi notched a kill to put the visitors up 27-26, but three straight errors catapulted UCSB to the win.
Slaughter and Menzel were named to the All-Tournament Team.
Devany, who split time with Max Klineman at setter last season, is starting to get comfortable in the offense, and he has his hitters feeling good.
“That guy is Mr. Golden Hands. He can set from anywhere on the court. It’s pretty unbelievable,” said Menzel. “He wasn’t very highly recruited, but I think we got a golden egg.”
There was even a little swagger in Menzel’s voice when he talked about the team’s goals.
“We want to go all the way, obviously. A lot of people think this is our transition year, and honestly we’re offended. We want to surprise some people. Not a lot of people think we can handle it mentally and physically, but they’re just going to have to come and get a loss against us.”
They’ll get a chance to back that up when UC Irvine pays a visit to Rob Gym on Wednesday night at 7 p.m.
