This week’s games for No. 4 UCLA beach volleyball (17-4) were about taking care of business. With the Pac-12 playoffs on the horizon and the Bruins having already run a gauntlet of sorts against then-No. 1 Pepperdine, then-No. 4 Hawaii and No. 6 Long Beach State, the matchups against Loyola Marymount Lions (5-16) and host Cal State Northridge Matadors (6-12) were never the primary focus.
On Wednesday, the Bruins accomplished their mission, pulling out a 4-1 victory over the Lions and a 5-0 sweep against the Matadors.
“I thought the play was good enough,” said coach Stein Metzger. “We’re getting towards the tail end of the season, trying to stay focused on mid-week competition is not easy.”
In the end, UCLA made it look easy. Its one hiccup came in the first flight against Loyola Marymount, which the Bruins more than recovered from. That being said, the team has faced its share of difficulties lately.
“We have people with sickness and injuries, and players playing in different spots,” Metzger said. “It was a bit wonky. I didn’t think we played our best volleyball, but it was enough to win.”
Health will be a paramount issue for the Bruins. They head into the Pac-12 championship playoffs on a string of 10 consecutive victories, which has undoubtedly provided the team with a heavy dose of confidence. If UCLA wants to claim one of the eight highly sought after places in the NCAA championship, then it has to be operating at full strength.
“We have to get everyone healthy,” Metzger said. “There’s some sickness going around. We have to continue working on passing and setting, getting in sync and our offensive systems.”
No. 1 USC and No. 7 Arizona will be merciless opponents. Mistakes could be costly and hard to recover from. As such, UCLA needs its best to be on display.
“We need to sharpen up fundamentally, it’s been a hard season, just trying to push through our fatigue [and] focus on our technique,” said sophomore Elise Zappia. “We need to be mentally prepared that it’s going to get a lot tougher from here on out.”
The keys for the Bruins will be sharpness and toughness. The final stretch of the season requires a white-knuckle, no holds barred, win or go home mentality.
“We can’t take the gas pedal off at all,” said senior Kamila Tan. “We have to keep the steam rolling, keep going 100 percent, which means full practices, taking care of our bodies and feeding ourselves well. We need to make sure we’re putting ourselves in the right position to perform the best we can at Pac-12s in order to make it to nationals and perform well there too.”
With contributing reports from Saad Qasim, Daily Bruin contributor.