When the UCLA women’s volleyball players awoke last Saturday morning following their match against Arizona, it appeared that their newfound confidence had died on arrival in the desert.
UCLA entered last Friday’s match against Arizona riding high off its first Pac-12 victory of the year. However, the momentum was to be short-lived – the Bruins were promptly swept by the host Wildcats, in a match in which the Bruins routinely failed to execute.
“The quality of the passing was very poor, you had players that weren’t paying attention to the pass or the set, or didn’t have the intent to really make a great play,” said coach Mike Sealy. “We were just whacking balls around, and that makes it really, really difficult to stay in our system.”
However Sealy’s squad would rebound two days later by sweeping then-No. 22 Arizona State, its first win over a ranked team this year. After going winless in their first five conference games, the Bruins have won two of their last three, a feat junior setter Megan Moenoa said speaks to the team’s determination.
“We were 0-5 at one point, and I think a lot of teams and a lot of people could give up in our situation, but we’ve shown to be pretty relentless, and I think that’s huge,” Moenoa said.
However, if the Bruins are to turn their season around, they will have to pull off at least a few more upsets. Three teams in the loaded Pac-12, including Washington, who the team faces Friday, are ranked in the top six, and only one team in the conference has a losing record.
Despite its brutal upcoming schedule – six of the Bruins’ final 12 conference games are against ranked opponents – UCLA feels its play of late is a sign of things to come.
“We are playing with a lot of confidence right now, and confidence not in just ourselves, but confidence in the staff, but confidence in the team, each other,” said senior middle blocker Mariana Aquino.
Injury report
UCLA will be without a key contributor this weekend in its matches against Washington and Washington State. Redshirt freshman outside hitter Hayley Lawless sustained a a knee injury after landing on a teammate during the team’s match against Arizona State.
Lawless has appeared in 13 games for the Bruins this year while making nine starts, posting 64 kills and averaging 2.19 points per set over that span. The loss is made all the more painful for the Bruins as Lawless, who had been performing strongly in practices of late, wasn’t supposed to be in the lineup for last weekend’s road trip.
“She was just coming off one of the best practices I’ve ever seen her have. She wasn’t going to play on this trip, but after seeing us struggle against Arizona, she was like, ‘I’m playing,’ and practiced, and we were really excited for her form,” Sealy said. “(Her) going down really soured things. I think we’d trade that win for her health.”