The last time UCLA women’s volleyball beat Stanford, Torrey Van Winden was 13 years old.
Five years later, the freshman opposite led the Bruins to a 3-1 victory over the No. 14 Cardinal (11-6, 5-4 Pac-12).
Van Winden tallied 19 kills and hit .417 as No. 15 UCLA (15-4, 5-3 Pac-12) hosted the Cardinal on Friday after a week of rest following the team’s pair of victories on the road in Oregon.
This marks the first time that UCLA has come out on top against Stanford since the Bruins’ national championship run 2011, snapping a seven-game losing streak.
The Cardinal initially rode their momentum from the past five years, dominating the first set 25-17 with tough serves and four aces to keep the Bruins out of system.
“In set one, they were serving really, really tough,” said coach Michael Sealy. “We definitely were flustered and not passing great. Because that’s a strong suit of ours, when that wasn’t working, that’s probably what flustered us a little bit.”
It wouldn’t last much longer.
The Bruins answered with four aces of their own in set two. UCLA put as many as an eight points between itself and the Cardinal, ultimately taking the set 25-17.
Despite sitting the first set out, senior outside hitter Jordan Anderson made her presence known, notching 15 kills after coming into the match.
“We were really timid the first set. We knew that they had really good blockers and we were trying to hit around them,” Anderson said. “We were told to just go after them and be equally as aggressive as they were.”
The Cardinal block posed a formidable challenge for UCLA’s pin hitters, and forced the Bruin offense to accommodate for the glaring height deficit at the net.
“They have a big block, so we had to do smart shots,” said senior libero Taylor Formico. “Jordan came in and she was a big energy for us. She was putting balls away and it kind of turned the momentum and got us going.”
Anderson came on strong in set three, notching nine kills to lead the Bruins to a 25-21 set-three win.
The Bruins once again started off with an early lead, but Stanford closed the deficit, tying the set at 13. After a tight race to 20 points, UCLA pulled ahead and claimed the set 25-21.
Although the Cardinal lead the nation in blocking, their top threat didn’t make an appearance. Redshirt senior middle blocker Inky Ajanaku saw no playing time against the Bruins.
“It changes a lot when their best player gets injured in a pregame,” Sealy said. “I told their coach, ‘It’s a drag,’ because they’re a great team and she makes them a lot better, so it was just an unfortunate accident for them.”
Sealy also said that he’s seen teams fire up and do great things when one of their best goes down, though, so his own players responded well to the situation.
The fourth set was a close battle, but the Bruins came out on top 25-22 thanks to a string of kills from Van Winden.
UCLA will take on California (8-11 2-7 Pac-12) at the John Wooden Center Sunday at noon.