The members of the UCLA women’s volleyball team walked onto the courts this past weekend nearly unrecognizable because they were not wearing the usual white, blue and gold uniforms.
This weekend, the team took the court, donning pink jerseys in support of Breast Cancer Awareness week
Even though they were not wearing their usual outfits, the No. 6 Bruins (16-3, 9-2 Pac-12) played the same dominant volleyball they’ve played all season, as they routed the two Oregon schools in conference play.
On Friday night, the Bruins outplayed Oregon State and won the match in three sets, 25-14, 25-17, 25-14.
The next night, the Bruins played against No. 16 Oregon in a tough match, but beat them in four sets 25-21, 22-25, 25-23, 25-19.
The game against Oregon State (11-8, 3-6) gave coach Mike Sealy an opportunity to play his younger backups. In fact, freshman outside hitter Priscilla Duke-Ezeji played a big role in winning that game, posting a career-best 11 kills.
Much of the team’s success in both games was because of the play by junior transfer and outside-hitter Tabi Love.
She had a team-high 13 kills for a season-best 0.423 hitting percentage against Oregon State, and followed up her performance with 16 kills for a .387 hitting percentage along with two blocks against Oregon.
“I was excited to play at home again,” Love said. “We came off a tough loss in Arizona and I was really excited in practice to get a lot better this week. We knew that Oregon and Oregon State would give us two tough games.”
Oregon (12-6, 5-5) gave UCLA quite a hard time Saturday.
The Bruins had to go on a long run to come back from behind in the opening set and weathered a late run from the Ducks in the fourth set to eke out the victory.
“Oregon is the best volleyball team in the country,” Sealy said. “They may not be as physical as other teams, but position-by-position, their ability to play the sport the way it’s supposed to be played ““ they’re the best I’ve seen all year.
“They make plays. You never get an easy kill. You have to swing at three or four balls every rally just to get the ball down. It’s an amazing challenge.”
Sophomore middle blocker Mariana Aquino had some crucial kills and blocks in the third and fourth sets against Oregon to close out the Bruins’ two-win weekend. Senior setter Lauren Van Orden added a double-double with 47 assists and 11 digs.
“They were an awesome team,” Aquino said. “It’s good though because they’re bringing their best for us. We need that in order to win a national championship.”
Sophomore outside hitter Kelly Reeves was back in the lineup and played a significant amount of time against Oregon after missing time with an injury a couple weeks back.
Aside from adding two more notches to the win column, the Bruins had another focus for these matches. The weekend was an important opportunity for the team to test their mental toughness.
“Tonight was nice because it was the same challenging, emotional night that we shied away from in the past,” Sealy said. “Arizona played just as tough as that and we quit. But tonight, we were able to play through it.”