It was a forgettable night for the UCLA women’s volleyball team as they were upset by Baylor in four sets, eliminating the Bruins from the NCAA Tournament in only the second round.
In a four-set shocker of the No. 8-seeded Bruins, unseeded Baylor became only the third team to beat the Bruins in Pauley Pavilion, taking UCLA down with set scores of 25-23, 25-22, 29-31, and 25-19. Baylor will face No. 9-seeded California in the round of sixteen Friday in Gainseville, Fla.
For the Bruins, facing a team with a powerful offense, it was a case of not showing up to play.
“We didn’t show up, we took it lightly and thought it was an easy way to go to “¦ Gainesville,” sophomore middle blocker Amanda Gil said. “But we just started too late and played catch-up the whole game.”
Through the match, UCLA’s serving, one of their main strengths, kept UCLA down. The Bruins smacked eleven service errors with no aces.
“Certainly our serving let us down,” coach Andy Banachowski said. “And I think the service errors really shook our confidence a little bit.”
Baylor blazed three aces, all of which came in the first set.
UCLA showed life in the third set, dragging it out to force six additional points. In that set, the Bruin block, another low point against Baylor’s aggressive outside attack led by led by senior outside hitter Katie Sanders, came to life with nine total blocks.
Gil accounted for 4.5 of those blocks while freshman outside hitter Rachael Kidder came in for freshman setter Lauren Cook in the front row, adding two block assists of her own.
“I felt like we were trying to be too aggressive and we were hitting balls out and in the net,” Gil said. “We kind of calmed it down a bit, got our nerves out of the way and it started to look good the third and fourth games.”
Despite the momentum entering the fourth set, UCLA let the match go to Baylor.
To Gil, Baylor’s victory was simple.
“They were serving really hard while they had great defense behind their block,” Gil said. “We just can’t put the balls away.”