Hoping for a season-ending streak of 6-0 in the NCAA Tournament,
the women’s volleyball team took two steps closer to its goal
this weekend. The Bruins swept the University of Alabama at
Birmingham (27-10) and the University of Utah (28-4) on Friday and
Saturday in their final matches at Pauley Pavilion this season.
With these victories in the first and second rounds of NCAA
Tournament play, No. 4 UCLA (31-3) advances to play 13th-seeded
Oklahoma in Honolulu this Friday. On Friday, the Bruins took UAB
out of championship contention in convincing fashion, 30-24, 30-21,
30-23, and promptly sent the Blazers packing. “(UAB) played
differently than we had prepared for scouting-wise, but we
adjusted,” UCLA coach Andy Banachowski said. “It was a
good opening round for us.”
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The Blazers’ style and level of play was noticeably
different from that of UCLA’s Pac-10 competition, and the
Bruins were not in their normal rhythm Friday night. Their
regular-season court dominance did not quite shine through.
“Sometimes that happens when you get things started in
postseason (play),” Banachowski said. “I thought we got
better throughout the match. I still feel that our offense needs to
smooth out a little bit, but we got better through the night and we
will continue to get better.” Saturday’s match against
the Utes posed a bigger challenge to UCLA, especially at the net.
Utah’s average attacker was just over 6 feet 1 inch, with
middle blocker Emillie Toone leading the front at 6-7. But the
Bruins had seen opponents with imposing blocks before in Pepperdine
and Oregon, and were confident that they could handle what the Utes
had to offer. And UCLA came out of the gates with a resounding
statement: eight blocks. “I thought we played very well,
especially in Games 1 and 2, where we hit and blocked probably as
well as we ever have all season long,” Banachowski said. But
by the end of Game 2, the Utes had begun to turn up the heat on
their blocking and offensive power. “We were a couple points
away from taking Games 2 and 3,” Utah coach Beth Launiere
said. “You have to give credit to UCLA; they made good plays,
especially at the end of Game 3.” In Game 3, the Utes came
out of the mid-game break with a passion and determination to win
that the Bruins simply could not match. Utah took a 5-1 lead on
three blocks and two kills before forcing UCLA to take its first
time-out of the match. “We knew we were just a few plays
between winning and losing and being right there with them,”
said Utah outside hitter Whitney Webb, who led all players on the
night with 17 kills. “So we just knew we had to come out
strong and get those plays at the beginning so we could be
ahead.” The Utes turned the tables on the Bruins in Game 3,
racking up 5.5 blocks to UCLA’s one. “They were a very
aggressive team,” said UCLA middle blocker Nana Meriwether,
who led the Bruins with 15 kills and nine blocks on the night.
“And in the third game they did begin to pick up their
defense on our hitters and me as well, but my team told me to keep
swinging and that’s what I did,” Meriwether said. And
it was a good thing she kept swinging. Though Utah maintained its
edge as the third set was nearing an end, the Bruins were led in
the middle by Meriwether, who pounded down four of UCLA’s
final six crucial kills in that third set. “Our mental
toughness throughout the year has been really strong,”
Meriwether said. “We’ve been through a lot playing
Pac-10 teams, who ““ except for three ““ are all ranked.
So we’ve been through this. We worked off our confidence from
past games to get the win.”
POSTSEASON HONORS: Katie Carter, Nana
Meriwether and Nellie Spicer were all named to the All-Pac-10
women’s volleyball team, announced last Monday.