The UCLA women’s volleyball team needed to play a nearly
perfect match in order to have a shot at upsetting its biggest
rival. Unfortunately, it just didn’t happen.
The No. 1 USC Trojans came as advertised Friday, soundly beating
the No. 13 Bruins three games to none. The loss dropped
UCLA’s record to 12-7 (5-4 Pac-10) while the Trojans remained
undefeated at 16-0 (9-0).
The Bruins didn’t appear to be intimidated early on in the
match, taking an 8-5 lead in the first game. But behind the serving
of April Ross, USC stormed back to take a 10-8 lead. The two teams
seemed to trade points until the Trojans pulled away late, winning
the game by a comfortable 30-24 margin.
“We had some opportunities early on, but we weren’t
able to sustain it,” UCLA head coach Andy Banachowski
said.
Service errors bogged down the Bruins early in the second game,
letting USC jump out to a 5-1 lead. UCLA would eventually rally to
trail 16-15, but were never able to actually tie the game. At
20-19, the Trojans showed their dominant form and wore UCLA down,
taking the second game 30-22.
“Mentally, I think we just shut down after certain
points,” senior Lauren Fendrick said. “It shows
we’re a young team, that we have a lot to work on.”
Tied at 18 in the third game, UCLA had an opportunity to take a
rare lead in the match. But once again, the Trojans defense stymied
an anemic Bruin offense. USC would go on to win the third game
30-24.
USC’s blocking tandem of 6-foot-3 Katie Olsovsky and 6-5
Emily Adams either rejected or altered nearly every Bruin attack.
Their huge height advantage contributed to UCLA’s paltry
hitting percentage.
In games one and two, the Bruins hit .000. They didn’t
improve much in the third game, either, hitting only .089.
“There were times where I think we should have put the
ball away and just didn’t,” sophomore Krystal McFarland
said.
Despite the flaws in the offense, UCLA didn’t embarrass
itself on defense at all. In all three of the games, the Bruins
stuck close to the Trojans until the scores approached the 20-point
mark. After that, USC simply asserted itself and took control of
each game.
“We just couldn’t play into the twenties
evenly,” Banachowski said. “We ended up making too many
errors.”
UCLA needed an off-day from the Trojans and a season-best
performance to win. They got neither.
USC had experience, size, athleticism and home court advantage
on its side.
“We’ll use this experience to see what we need to do
to get better,” Banachowski said.