Three-time All-American and four-time All-Conference senior setter Nellie Spicer started every match of the season for the UCLA women’s volleyball team, tallying close to 85 percent of all their assists. Her role as a team leader had long since been established by the opening serve of No. 14 seed UCLA’s Sweet 16 matchup against No. 3 Texas.
So when she limped off the court with a rolled ankle in the opening points of the first set, Bruin fan’s optimism waned.
But despite eventually losing the game and ending their season in four sets the Bruin squad showed much more fight than most were going to give them credit for.
The odds were stacked mighty high against the Bruins (22-11) that night, looking to face a Longhorn team (28-3) that had demolished its first two NCAA tournament opponents in easy sweeps and had earned the right to play in front of a home crowd that begged to have a hand in the outcome of the game.
“We spent a lot of time in our preseason going out and playing on the road,” coach Andy Banachowski said before the match. “We really try and prepare for situations like this come the end of the year.”
In front of over 2,940 mostly orange-clad volleyball fans at Austin’s Gregory Gymnasium, UCLA certainly appeared as if they were out of place, losing an ominous 25-11 first set, while a temporarily injured Spicer was on the bench for most of the period.
“The atmosphere was very different than what we’re used to,” freshman middle blocker Amanda Gil said. “We felt like they were on top of us and they’re really good fans. Just being able to play in that type of atmosphere was a great experience for us.”
However, Spicer would return and so would the Bruins, as they posted a revitalizing 25-22 wire-to-wire victory in the second set. Senior outside hitter Ali Daley, whose team-leading 54 swings were the face of the UCLA offense for most of the night, had six of her 14 kills in the set. Spicer also contributed 10 assists, but it would prove to be the Bruins’ last set victory of the season.
UCLA dropped the next two sets, both at competitive 25-21 scores, but it was not enough to please the Bruins, whose season hinged on an inability to close against more aggressive opponents.
“I’m certainly very proud of our team and the way we played tonight,” Banachowski said. “Give a tremendous amount of credit to Texas. Their offensive firepower finally wore us down.”
Although the matchup between UCLA’s signature defense and Texas’ powerful offense was supposed to be the story of the night, the Longhorns’ defense proved just as commanding as its offensive attack.
Texas had 19.5 team blocks and out-dug the Bruin back row 79-68. Over the course of the match, the UCLA offense could only muster a season-worst .068 hitting percentage, dragged down by a -.095 clip in the final set.
UCLA put together some scrappy runs in the third and fourth periods, but in the end they had no way to contain the huge Longhorn front line. Six-foot-5-inch Lauren Paolini, whose .484 regular season hitting percentage ranked second in the nation, had 17 kills and hit at a .483 clip, and 6-4 Destinee Hooker, also a national high jump champion, added 16 kills of her own.
Gil led the Bruin block with two solos and four block assists in addition to her six kills. Senior libero Jessica Fine led the team with 22 digs in her final game in a UCLA uniform.
SPICER ROUNDS OUT CAREER: Senior Nellie Spicer, who has already cemented her claim as one of the greatest setters in UCLA volleyball history, reached a milestone against Texas. With her 25 assists in the Bruins’ final game of the season, she ends her career with 6,000 even, second on the all-time list only to Erika Selsor (6,234). Spicer was later named to the All-American first team for the third straight time.
FINE DIGS LAST HONOR: Senior Jessica Fine earned her first All-American honors, gaining a spot on the third-team. She had 590 digs on the season, which ranks as the second-highest single-season total in Bruin history.
PENN STATE COMPLETES PERFECT REPEAT: Penn State lost just two sets the entire season en route to a 38-0 record and another NCAA championship. After a thrilling 3-2 semifinal victory over host Nebraska in front of over 17,000 fans at the Qwest Center in Omaha, the Nittany Lions swept Pac-10 champion Stanford in the final for the second straight year. Stanford came back from a 0-2 deficit to beat Texas in the other semifinal matchup.