After the Galen Center went pitch black, spotlights shone down on the members of the USC women’s volleyball team as they were introduced to the crowd. Although UCLA was able to steal that limelight for a moment, in the end it was the Women of Troy who proved that they were the stars of the night.
In a downward spiral, the No. 9 Bruins lost the stranglehold they had on the No. 6 Trojans, falling in four games 30-24, 27-30, 26-30 and 24-30 in front of a pro-USC crowd of 2,142 on Friday.
UCLA, in its third straight loss, fell to 16-7 overall and 6-6 in Pac-10 play, while the Trojans continued their winning ways, improving their record to 20-3 and 9-3 in the Pac-10.
The night, in which the Bruins were continuously trumped by the Women of Troy, did not start out all that bad.
In fact, Game 1 proved to be quite a celebration for UCLA, even on the brink of becoming a party ““ a block party.
Amassing nine blocks in the first set, the Bruins took a commanding lead over USC, even as much as a 10-point advantage.
Led in the front row by opposite Elise Carstensen, UCLA’s defense scored five of its first seven points from its wall at the net. And by the end of the first game, the Bruins out-roofed their crosstown rivals 9-3.
“We just felt like our game plan was coming to fruition,” senior Rachell Johnson said, who finished with a match-high eight blocks for the night. “We were doing things right and they were working out. We charted them, we scouted them all week, and when you follow the game plan, things go well.”
But even as the first set wound down, things began to unravel ever so slightly.
At one point, the Trojans had closed the gap to six points, and it seemed that they were slowly gaining back momentum.
USC began to get more touches on the UCLA hitters’ attacks, and the Bruins weren’t able to find the court like they had in the first set. The wall at the net was also not holding up as strongly as it did in Game 1.
Johnson and coach Andy Banachowski attributed this switch-up to the team’s decrease in focus and a change in the Trojans’ offensive plans.
“They changed their attack point a little bit,” Banachowski said. “They attacked more from right side and set more backset balls. Our left side block wasn’t as good as right side.
“I think that, strangely, we got a little complacent. We didn’t have the same intensity through the rest of the match, so that hurt us also.”
It was a frustrating night for the Bruins, as they finished hitting .061 and .082 in the last two sets, which was certainly not the best offensive output for UCLA.
The team leaders, Johnson, and outsides Ali Daley and Kaitlin Sather put down 14, 11 and 10 kills, respectively, but all hit below .200.
Also, Sather could not find her way around the Trojan defense until a third of the way through Game 3, when she nailed her first kill of the night.
“(Our intensity) was in spurts,” Johnson said. “Sometimes we were really, really high, really energetic. Then at other times we were low and made kind of weird plays.”
But despite the painful loss, the Bruins are already looking ahead to the future to take the next step to improving for the postseason.
“We don’t have a chance of winning the Pac-10, so now it’s going to be preparing for postseason play,” Banachowski said.