Over the first few weeks of the season, UCLA volleyball supporters have become accustomed to pounding hearts and rattled nerves. Wins have been dramatic and tense; losses have been hard-fought and tough to swallow.
On Sunday afternoon, the nail-biting was put on hold and saved for another day.
The No. 4 Bruins (7-4, 3-2 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) cruised to their first sweep of the year, defeating the No. 14 Pacific Tigers (3-3, 2-3) in three quick sets.
While the Bruins eventually ran away with the match, it didn’t start so easily. Following an ongoing trend, the Bruins fell behind quickly early in the first set. At another point earlier in the year, UCLA may have let the first set slip away and been forced to try to battle its way back. Not this time.
“We didn’t get rattled when we were down early. I think they actually made a series of really good offensive plays and we made a couple errors. We just had to clean it up on our side of the net,” said coach John Speraw. “(Redshirt junior setter) Connor Bannan was particularly effective serving the ball in that set. He went back there and served a number of points that gave us the run that we needed to get back in the game.”
Serving was a recurring issue in the early season for the Bruins, but Sunday afternoon showed improvement. Instead of handing opponents free points by committing service errors, the Bruins used their serves to take control and keep it until the last ball dropped.
“It was really all about serving,” said redshirt junior outside hitter Dane Worley. “The key thing was keeping the pressure on them to create (offense).”
After that early rough patch in the first set, the Bruins dominated. In both the second and third sets, they took big leads and never looked back.
Perhaps what was most impressive about the win was the strong finish; the Bruins won the third set 25-12 and only committed one attacking error while doing it.
Redshirt sophomore middle blocker Clayton Paullin put together an efficient individual performance on Sunday, racking up nine kills without a single error.
“The atmosphere on the court was just really nice today,” said Paullin. “We were connecting really well up the middle, and we had some great ball distribution this game.”
The middle connected, the passing was on point and serving came together. All in all, Sunday’s performance added up to a complete team victory for UCLA.
“I thought we were just ready to play today in general. I thought yesterday we had a fantastic practice, maybe the best practice we’ve had during the season,” Speraw said.
“You could tell the guys were focused and prepared and I thought we were able to go out and execute quickly. In general, it was maybe the best effort of the season so far.”
Email Villalobos at lvillalobos@media.ucla.edu.