While most of the student body will be enjoying leftover turkey
and mashed potatoes this coming holiday weekend, the UCLA
women’s volleyball team will be hard at work.
The Bruin squad travels to Albuquerque, New Mexico to take part
in the Albuturkey Tournament. The No. 21 Bruins (16-13, 9-9 Pac-10)
will take on Rice (18-13) and Butler (14-18) on Friday before
facing host New Mexico (8-20) on Saturday evening.
“We want to establish a rhythm,” said women’s
volleyball head coach Andy Banachowski. “It will be a big
confidence boost going into the NCAA tournament.”
The Bruins come into the tournament as heavy favorites in all
three of their matches over the weekend, and will be looking to pad
their win-loss record in order to improve their playoff seeding.
The NCAA tournament brackets will be announced at 6 p.m., and while
the Bruins will be in the field, they probably will not host a
match.
With two freshman and four sophomores in the rotation, the
Bruins are not the most playoff-tested bunch.
“It will be a new experience for some of these
kids,” Banachowski said. “We’ll try to look at it
as another match, but it’s do-or-die. That really intensifies
everything.”
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UCLA’s Chrissie Zartman was named to the All Pac-10 team
yesterday. The sophomore libero leads the Bruins averaging 4.48
digs per game. Senior Lauren Fendrick also earned honorable mention
All Pac-10 honors, while Haley Jorgensborg was named to the
Honorable Mention All-Freshman Team.