Spiker Pollock settles down

Before Thursday night's match against No. 2 UCLA, No. 5 Penn State had a question to answer.

The question is the same every year: Can the Nittany Lions compete with the powerful west coast, where good volleyball teams are as common as smog filled skies?

The Penn State men's volleyball program is a rarity in the world of collegiate volleyball. They are one of a handful of east coast schools that consistently put together top-ranked teams. The Lions always find top-level talent, but they don't always find equal competition.

"The volleyball magazines always say we never have a chance because we never play good competition in the east, since no one is good enough to give us the matches like the UCLA's," said Lion co-captain Jason Kepner after last week's alumni match.

"When we go out (to the west), we struggle early on because we are not used to seeing what they bring to the court," he added. "As long as we practice hard and do what we can do in our gym, I think we can be able to hang with UCLA."

The Lions did more than just hang with UCLA. They proved the skeptics wrong by upsetting last year's NCAA champion Bruins in four sets, 15-11, 15-11, 14-16, 15-5.

As always, the Lion co-captains put up their typically great games. Ivan Contreras led the team with 26 kills, and Kepner grabbed 24. But it was the play of the other four starters that put Penn State over the top.

Perhaps the biggest performance of those four came from setter Dan Pollock.

At last year's Outrigger Invitational, Pollock, a redshirt freshman at the time, struggled as the Bruins defeated the Lions in four games.

In a word, the Lions played poorly. With Pollock leading the offense, the Lions put up an anemic attack percentage of .232, with only Contreras and Kevin Hourican reaching double digits in kills with 29 and 10 respectively -- facts that Pollock has not forgotten.

"I thought about it, but I knew we were a lot better team this year," Pollock said. "I thought I had something to prove and that was my mind set going out there."

He proved a lot, as the Lions played like a well-oiled machine against the Bruins, with much of the credit belonging to Pollock.

He spread out his 82 sets among all five starters, allowing each of them to reach double digits in kills, as Penn State posted an attack percentage of .358 against a strong UCLA defense that stars All-American Tom Stillwell, who led the nation in blocking last year.

"He did everything to keep UCLA off-balance, the distribution was exactly what we wanted," coach Mark Pavlik said. "Danny's starting to act like a setter and not just a distributor, that's what we need at that position."

UCLA is the undisputed king of men's volleyball programs, winning 16 NCAA titles since 1970. They don't lose very often, and when they do, the other team has a reason to be happy.

"It was a confidence builder for the whole team," Pollock said.

The only way these teams can meet again is at the NCAA championships in May. The next question that faces the Lions is: Can they pull out another victory the next time they face the Bruins?