Opening the second half of Pac-10 play, the UCLA women’s volleyball team defeated both of the Bay Area schools this weekend. Playing up North for the weekend, the Bruins defeated California on Friday and Stanford on Saturday, solidifying the Bruins’ position at third in the conference.
The No. 11 Bruins (18-6, 8-3 Pac-10) had reason to celebrate on Halloween, because UCLA defeated No. 4 Stanford (15-6, 8-3 Pac-10) for the first time since 2000. Set scores were 25-18, 34-32, 19-25, 21-25, 15-11.
The match gave coach Andy Banachowski his 1,100th career victory in his 43rd year with the program.
“Getting 1,100 wins means that you have been hanging around for a very long time,” Banachowski said. “It’s great that we have great players at UCLA that allow me to build up the record that I have.”
Stanford led for most of the first set, at times leading by as much as five. With the Cardinal up 18-14, UCLA scored 11 straight to finish the match.
“It really is unusual to be able to go on an 11-0 run like that, but the momentum was definitely on our side at that point,” Banachowski said. “We just were playing some good defensive and making good plays.”
The second set continued to push the high level of competition between the two teams, going past the usual 25 points to 34-32. With 10 lead changes and 25 tied scores, neither team ever led by more than two points. At Stanford’s game point, 24-23, freshman outside hitter Bojana Todorovic tallied a crucial kill for UCLA to push the set into extra points.
Stanford failed to convert five game points, while UCLA was at game point three times before finally ending the set with a block from Todorovic and sophomore middle blocker Amanda Gil.
“Games that go that far past 25 are always so intense and such nail-biters,” sophomore libero Lainey Gera said. “They made a lot of mental errors, and we continued to keep our cool and not even worry about the score.”
Stanford took over in the third and fourth sets. In the third set, UCLA had eight errors and could not stop Stanford from taking control and going on a 9-3 run early on. In the fourth, UCLA led early on, but Stanford dominated the second half of the set to push the match to a fifth game.
Going into the fifth set, UCLA had to overcome a momentum shift after Stanford won the previous two sets.
Things did not look good for the Bruins as Stanford reached the halfway mark first, leading 8-5. After a Stanford timeout with Stanford losing 10-9, two kills from Gil and kills from Todorovic and freshman outside hitter Rachael Kidder gave UCLA the set and the match.
“I know a lot of girls who graduated having never beat them,” redshirt senior opposite Kaitlin Sather said. “After the game I was just ecstatic, and I felt like the coaches had tears in their eyes and everybody was hugging.”
Todorovic tied her career best with 14 kills and five blocks, combined with 10 digs for her third double-double this season. Sather added another double-double to her season with a team-high 14 kills and 20 digs.
The Halloween victory came one night after another impressive victory over No. 14 California (13-8, 6-5 Pac-10) at Haas Pavilion. In the four-set match, ÂÂÂÂÂa strong showing from sophomore middle blocker Sara Sage and a well-spread offense helped the Bruins beat the Bears 25-20, 25-20, 16-25, 25-19.
“We went out and weren’t really sure how we were going to play because six players on our roster didn’t practice on Thursday because they were sick,” Banachowski said. “But the players responded really well.”
With usual starter sophomore Katie Camp out with illness, fellow sophomore Sara Sage filled in at middle blocker. Sage finished with a career-high 11 kills and a .471 hitting percentage.
After a Bruin-dominated first two sets, California used a 6-0 run in the third to win its only set of the match. The Bears outhit the Bruins .406 to .083 in the third set.
The Bruins eventually won the fourth set with consecutive kills by Sather.