With the regular season behind them, the Bruins are set to defend both of last season’s titles.
No. 1 UCLA (28-1) will begin postseason play at the Pac-12 Beach Volleyball Championship at Merle Norman Stadium in Los Angeles. UCLA will face the winner of No. 8 seed Utah (5-7) and No. 9 seed Oregon (4-9-1) in its first game Friday.
The Bruins have not played the Utes this season, but they did secure a 5-0 victory over the Ducks on March 26.
With up to eight different possible opponents, coach Stein Metzger knows his team has to be prepared for numerous different game plans.
“Certainly we’ll continue to prepare our scouting reports for all the teams that we’ll play,” Metzger said. “Our programwide stuff is pretty instilled in them, so it’s mostly just fine-tuning a couple things, making sure that if one strategy doesn’t work, we have some backup strategies in terms of how we play offensively or defensively.”
UCLA could face crosstown rival No. 2 USC (24-4) twice in the double elimination tournament. The Trojans are the only team to beat the Bruins this season, winning 3-2 at the Pac-12 North Invitational at Stanford.
Senior Izzy Carey said the Trojans may throw some new duos at the Bruins, but they will be prepared no matter who they come up against.
“There’s a couple switch-ups in (USC’s) partnerships, especially at the lower seeds, so I might be playing a new girl,” Carey said. “We’re very excited to show our dominance and confidence on the court.”
The Bruins come into the weekend fresh off two sweeps in their home finale. UCLA won all 20 sets on the day, including all 10 against then-No. 10 Long Beach State.
The Bruins also own a 10-1 record against Pac-12 opponents this year, including six sweeps. UCLA is 2-0 against possible second round opponent No. 5 seed Stanford, with a sweep at the Outrigger Duke Kahanamoku Beach Classic on Feb. 23.
“Everyone has a good feel for what everyone else is doing now,” senior Sarah Sponcil said. “Everyone has the physicality. But are we mentally going to handle it when it counts, and are we going to be good teammates to each other in pressured situations? We did that really well at nationals (last season), and I hope to continue that.”
With less than a week between the Pac-12 championship and the NCAA championship, the Bruins have already started preparation to defend their title, as the team is almost certain to make the trip to Gulf Shores, Alabama.
“We’ve been working a lot with blocking in practice,” Carey said. “Just decision-making, and being able to read whether the blocker is coming into hit and being able to take more space with our blocks, so that’s definitely helped me.”