After ending a six-match winning streak in disappointing fashion
by losing to Arizona last Saturday, the UCLA women’s
volleyball team will have a great chance to make up for it against
two higher-ranked teams this weekend. The Bruins will face No. 5
Stanford (23-5, 12-4 Pac-10) on Friday at 7 p.m. and No. 12
California (18-8, 10-6) on Saturday at 7 p.m. Both matches are
planned to be held in Pauley Pavilion. “(Winning) would be a
great way for us to finish off our regular season and get us ready
for the postseason,” coach Andy Banachowski said. “We
need to show that we can play with these teams.” After
beating then-No. 2 Washington two weeks ago, the Bruins appeared to
have turned a corner in their season. Washington was the first
higher-ranked team the Bruins had beaten all season. But after
facing their recent setback against the No. 6 Wildcats, the Bruins
find themselves in a familiar position. “We’re still
trying to prove ourselves,” junior middle blocker Katie
Carter said. “We can’t just beat one good team, and
that’s it. We have to prove that that wasn’t just a
lucky night for us.” In their venture to the Bay Area last
month, the Bruins did not win a game the entire trip, losing to Cal
3-0 (30-26, 30-24, 30-28) and Stanford 3-0 (30-22, 31-29, 30-26).
Nonetheless, with the home-court advantage and the improvement the
team has made, the Bruins are confident they can compete better
this time around. “We played them the first weekend in
Pac-10, and we’ve grown a lot as a team since then,”
Carter said. “We need to pull it all together this weekend
and be more aggressive all the way around.” Against Arizona
last weekend, the Bruins were overmatched by the energy of the
Wildcats, who were playing an inspired senior-night match. Even
more importantly, the Bruins let their fundamentals slip, and that
is something Banachowski realizes they cannot afford to do if they
hope to upset Cal and Stanford this weekend. “Our serving has
really taken an upward turn from the middle of the Pac-10 on, but
it wasn’t there this past weekend. And our passing, which has
been very good recently, kind of broke down a little bit. We
definitely need to pass better (this weekend),” Banachowski
said. UCLA was the eighth seed in the 2003 tournament and the 15th
seed in last season’s tournament.
PLAYOFF SEEDING: If the Bruins execute their fundamentals and
manage to come away with victories this weekend, they will likely
be rewarded with one of the 16 seeds out of 64 teams for the NCAA
Tournament when the draw comes out on Sunday. The Bruins are
currently ranked 16th in the nation, and in order to host the first
two rounds of the tournament they must claim one of the seeds.
Since the inception of the 64-team tournament, the Bruins have
never lost a first- or second-round match that they have
hosted.