With more friends and family than usual coming to cheer them on at senior night Saturday, the members of the women’s volleyball team will be getting what they hope will be enough support to spur them on to what could be the biggest win of the 2007 season.
Every single match from here on out, including Saturday’s match against No. 5 Washington (23-2, 12-2 Pac-10) and tonight’s match against Washington State (9-19, 0-14), will prove to be crucial in helping the Bruins further their postseason chances.
The No. 10 Bruins have gone 2-6 in their last eight matches, bringing their overall record to 17-8 and dropping them to fifth in the Pac-10 with a 7-7 mark.
With only four conference games and a nonconference match against Pepperdine remaining, UCLA will need to prove itself to the NCAA selection committee to receive a good seed for postseason play.
“That’s one thing the committee looks at when they do the selection ““ how you’re playing in the last 10 games,” coach Andy Banachowski said. “If we can win these next five, we can end up 6-4 in our last 10 games. So it’s really important to finish strong here.”
A win against Washington would certainly draw some much-needed attention, as well as boost the confidence of the Bruins.
But it will be no easy task to take down the fifth-ranked Huskies, who are second in the conference and just half a game behind Pac-10 leader Stanford.
“They’re well-rounded, they’ve got really good hitters on the outside and in the middle,” junior Kaitlin Sather said.
Washington ranks second in the conference in team hitting percentage, with an average of .296, while holding its opponents to a .140 clip.
Three of its players lead the Pac-10 in hitting efficiency ““ Jessica Swarbick at .395, Becky Perry at .373 and Alesha Deesing at .344 ““ not to mention the Huskies’ All-American Christal Morrison, who chips in 3.93 kills per game, and Stevie Mussie, who puts down another 4.15. All around, the Huskies’ offensive front is nearly unstoppable.
But unfortunately for the Bruins, offensive staying power has not been a strong suit of late.
Seventh in the conference, UCLA is hitting .218 against its opponents, and the team has realized it needs to stay focused throughout the entire match to maintain a consistent level of output.
“I think that we can match teams’ intensity. We just don’t always match their execution level,” Banachowski said. “That’s going to be our challenge. We played well and did some good things last time against Washington but we just had too many breakdowns and they are a steady team. We have to perform at that same level ourselves.”
Along with working on their serving, the team has been working to improve on its attacks.
“The coaches are really pushing us to go hard all the time and really play like it’s game time when we’re in practice,” senior Rachell Johnson said. “We’re working on different shots. The middles are learning more off-speed shots and using more deception in our hitting. The outsides are hitting more problem sets, trouble plays.”
SENIOR GOODBYES: As the last regular season home game of the year, senior middle blockers Johnson and Meghan Schoen will be recognized prior to the start of the Washington match. Though it is likely the Bruins will host the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament, the end of the tunnel is in sight for the two seniors.
“It is kind of hitting home that I am nearing the end of my college career,” Johnson said. “It gives me extra motivation to make it worth it, to play hard and get the most out of it that I can.”