They didn’t have any time to waste ““ three games in two days is a tall order, especially to open the season.
No. 11 UCLA women’s volleyball started the year in impressive fashion, conquering three nonconference opponents over the weekend without dropping a single set.
The Bruins started out by dispatching Quinnipiac 3-0 on Friday, led by sophomore Meg Norton’s 11 kills and eight digs.
Freshman Megan Moenoa had 31 assists in her collegiate debut, and UCLA hit .271 for the match.
On Saturday the Bruins met Cal State Fullerton. Senior Lauren Van Orden had a double-double with 25 assists and 10 digs, and junior Rachael Kidder led the attack with 13 kills to secure another win in straight sets.
“Our expectation for this weekend was to come out and play our game. It’s our first time playing together as a team, so there were some jitters, but I thought we did a really good job,” sophomore Kelly Reeves said.
“We have to run our offense and stay in our system, we want to keep our tempo and not let the other team determine that.”
UCLA left little for its opponents to determine, taking control of matches early and never relinquishing its lead.
In the tournament championship on Saturday night, UCLA faced its toughest opponent of the weekend in Loyola Marymount.
The Lions scored the first four points of the match, but it was all Bruins after that.
A 10-0 run on junior Bojana Todorovic’s serve and 11 kills from Reeves throughout the match secured UCLA’s third win of the weekend and the championship.
“Another thing we want to focus on is winning the serve/receive battle, and I thought we did a really good job of that this weekend,” Reeves said.
UCLA dominated its opponents in the service game.
Todorovic had a prolific weekend for the Bruins, leading the team on an 11-0 run against Cal State Fullerton and racking up eight aces in the process, tying a 28-year-old school record. Todorovic finished the weekend with 12 aces.
“We serve very tough,” coach Michael Sealy said after the team’s win over LMU on Saturday.
“All of our opponents this week passed very poorly; they had to set high balls to the outside, and we’re so tall it allows our block defense to get in place. If we keep serving tough and keep them out of their system, it allows our block defense to set up and cause problems.”
Sealy has much to celebrate about, but the season is just getting started.
The Bruins travel to Honolulu next week for the Hawaiian Airlines Wahine Volleyball Classic at the University of Hawai’i, where they will face three top-25 teams.
“I’m happy with three wins, but by no means were we clicking on all cylinders. If we had played the Hawaii tournament this weekend, we could have gone 1-2 or 0-3,” Sealy said.
“We need to find our offense and get that up to speed and make sure that’s consistent.”