With impressive digging performances last weekend, the UCLA
women’s volleyball team demonstrated a much-improved defense.
UCLA (11-7, 4-5 Pac-10) collected 176 total digs in a win over
Arizona State and a loss to Arizona, nearly matching their combined
total of 189 for the four previous matches and proving that one of
the team’s recent weaknesses has become a strength. “I
hadn’t even realized that we had dug so many balls,”
UCLA coach Andy Banachowski said. “I think the players are
getting more comfortable in their positioning, and they did a great
job of digging up a lot of balls.” In a 73-dig performance
against Arizona, freshman libero Jordan Smith and freshman setter
Nellie Spicer both exceeded their previous career highs with 23 and
19 digs, respectively. UCLA continued its strong play the next
night against Arizona State, racking up a season-high 103 digs in
only four games. Five different Bruins recorded double-digit
digging performances in the match. None of UCLA’s previous
five matches had seen more than two players accomplish this feat.
Smith had the standout performance of the night with 32 digs,
easily surpassing her career high set the night before. “I
really had no idea I was getting that many digs,” Smith said.
“I was just trying to get all over the place and get balls
up. I was being scrappy and moving my feet. We’ve been
working a lot on defense because at the start of the season our
digging numbers weren’t very good, and I guess it showed in
the game.” Another top contributor was junior Laura
Kroneberger, who had only 14 digs in the Bruins’ seven
conference matches before last weekend but dug 15 balls in the
Arizona State match alone. “Jordan did a really good job of
defending the back row, and Laura passed really well and did a good
job on defense,” junior Nana Meriwether said. “They
both showed that our work on defense and passing is paying
off.”
BLOCKING: The Bruins’ strong digging
would not have been possible without the team putting up a solid
block, which they were able to do against both Arizona schools.
After recording eight blocks against Arizona, UCLA got 11 blocks in
the win over Arizona State, which is the team’s highest block
total in its last 10 games. “We didn’t have a
stupendous blocking performance, but it was a good
performance,” Banachowski said. “Not only did we get 11
blocks, but we were able to bundle some things around to our
diggers, which allowed us to get as many digs as we did.”
Junior Katie Carter came up big for the Bruins against Arizona
State with a season-high three solo blocks and two block assists.
Meriwether, who leads the Pac-10 with 1.58 blocks per game, also
contributed with one solo block and three block assists.
“Everyone did a great job of covering the blocking
assignments, which made is much easier for me to dig balls,”
Smith said.
POLLING: With the split over the weekend
against Arizona and Arizona State, the Bruins moved one spot down
in the CSTV/AVCA Coaches Top 25 Poll to No. 22. UCLA has not been
ranked lower since October 1998, when they were No. 23. “I
think we have a lot of growing to do because we’re
young,” Smith said. “Against Arizona we came out strong
in the first game and then just backed down. We need to be able to
go hard the whole time, and that is something we’ll learn
with more experience.”