Back-to-back for UCLA as Bruins top Beach for NCAA volleyball title
NCAA Men
Lee Feinswog
May 4, 2024
UCLA wins the 2024 NCAA title/Jan Kim Lim photo
LONG BEACH, California — Zach Rama and UCLA weren’t going to give Long Beach State a chance at another reverse sweep.
The sophomore from Phoenix had all three of his kills in UCLA’s final five points of the fourth set Saturday as the Bruins came away with a 25-21, 25-20, 27-29, 25-21 victory in the NCAA’s National Collegiate Men’s Volleyball Championship.
Not only did UCLA repeat as national champion, it capped a season after which coach John Speraw likened his team to sewer rats. It’s really worth hearing before getting into the match details.
“You’r a little bit at risk when you come play at UCLA because your head coach majored in microbiology and genetics. And his favorite class when he was an undergrad was immunology. And it turns out that the immune system of sewer rats is something to behold. And that little critter runs around in a bunch of muck and you know what and it turns out nothing bothers them. They don’t have allergies, they can eat all the peanuts they want. They can do whatever they want because their immune system is conditioned to things that really matter.”
This was really being said at a news conference after a team won a national title.
“So I told them the story that life is about challenge and stress. When you have stress that makes you better. In the weight room, when you lift weights, what do you do? You actually tear the muscles and then they rebuild stronger than before. Evolution is a function of environmental stress. Adaptations and changes occur in our genome. Our immune systems are conditioned in particular ways based on exposure to pathagens and such. And this theme keeps coming through in biology and life and psychology, as well.
“So we talked and I told them about that randomly one day and that what we wanted to be was a bunch of sewer rats. We want to wallow in the muck and the crap and just come out on the other side and not be bothered by anything that isn’t important. And I feel like maybe that’s the appropriate term for the story today.”
And the ultimate sewer rat on Saturday might have been Rama. He played in the first three sets, but rarely touched the ball. He had no kills with one error in his first four swings. And late in the fourth, Speraw put him in for Cooper Robinson, who not only had 12 kills, but led UCLA in hitting percentage for the match at .417.
“It had to be done,” Speraw said.
The match was tied at 20 when Rama got his first kill. He put his team up 22-20 with another. After teammate Merrick McHenry missed his serve, Rama struck again.
“Rama came in and saved the day,” Speraw said.
Two Long Beach hitting errors later UCLA celebrated.
“All I can say is I really appreciate John Speraw for trusting me and putting me in there,” Rama said. “Coop was having a great game, but we both bring amazing things to the volleyball table and we can both make plays at any given time.”
Rama, who was a pretty good high school basketball player, had offers, the best from Pepperdine.
Speraw noted how deep his roster is and how playing time can be tough. “But the one thing we had, all of us here and myself in spades was trust that he could go in and make it happen. And he has before during the course of the season and he comes in with great energy. He’s unflappable and we know that. And we know what he’s capable of becoming and being and I didn’t have a doubt. I figured there would be sometime this weekend when it would be Rama time and it was the right time.”
Top-seeded UCLA of the MPSF ended its season 26-5 after sweeping Fort Valley State in the quarterfinals and beating UC Irvine in five on Thursday in the semifinals. This was UCLA’s 21st title, the first 19 under Al Scates, the 50-year coach who was replaced by Speraw and who was here Saturday.
“It’s hard to summarize a match like this because there were different stories that played out at different points of the match,” Speraw said.
Ethan Champion led UCLA with 15 kills, two assists, four digs and six blocks, one solo. Champlin was overcome with emotion after the victory.
“There’s a phrase that goes all gave some, some gave all. I didn’t have anything left to give that fourth set. I was trying my best but I was lightheaded, couldn’t feel my legs,” said Champlin, a senior from Oceanside, who nonetheless had three kills in nine errorless swings in the fourth set plus a dig and a block. “If we had gone five I wouldn’t have been doing too well.”
He paused and choked up again.
“To be here with these guys means a lot.”
Robinson had 12 kills and hit .417 to go with two assists, an ace, two digs and three blocks. Merrick McHenry, as he had been all season, finished nearly flawless on offense with 10 kills and one error in 11 attacks to go with an ace, five digs and five blocks. Ido David had nine kills, an assist, three aces, eight digs and four blocks. Guy Genis had four kills with one error in nine attacks, four digs and four blocks.
Setter Andrew Rowan had 46 assists, an ace, three digs and two blocks. His team hit .297 and had six aces and 21 serving errors.
Speraw has now won five titles as a coach, three times at UC Irvine (2007, 2009, 2012) and now two at his alma mater, where he won two more as a player (1993, ’95).
Second-seeded Long Beach State of the Big West finished 27-3 after beating Belmont Abbey in the quarterfinals and then pulling off a reverse sweep against Grand Canyon.
Long Beach State coach Alan Knipe, who won titles in 2018 and 2019 and also lost in the 2022 national-championship match, noted that the match, “showed a lot of people who don’t see volleyball all the time on a national audience on ESPN what men’s volleyball is all about and what it can look like.
“Two really, really good teams that had really good seasons with a lot of talented players.”
Sotiris Siapanis led Long Beach with 12 kills, but he hit .161 and had no aces and four errors. He had five digs and two blocks. Skyler Varga had 11 kills but 10 errors to go with five digs. Clarke Godbold, who came in during the second set, had nine kills, an ace, and five digs, one solo. Simon Torwie had eight kills in 14 errorless attacks, two aces, two digs and three blocks. DiAeris McRaven had four kills in eight errorless attacks and added a dig and six blocks, one solo.
Setter Aidan Knipe had 38 assists, eight digs and four blocks. His team hit .214 and had four aces and 19 errors.
“We weren’t good enough long enough,” Knipe said. “There’s no way around that. Credit to UCLA.”
Photographer Jim Wolf’s gallery of his best shots will post on Sunday.
