As part of a public relations effort, the women’s
volleyball team has been corresponding through letters to
elementary school classrooms throughout the season.
Well over 2,000 people ““ most of them children ““
showed up at Pauley Pavilion on Saturday to cheer on the Bruins,
turning the normally demure pavilion into as raucous an arena as
there could be in the Pacific 10 Conference.
At first it seemed as if a couple thousand young hearts would be
broken, but No. 8 UCLA rebounded from a dismal
performance in its first game to sweep the next three,
defeating No. 10 Washington 23-30, 30-26, 30-26, 30-26.
“Once we got the momentum, we just went from there. The
crowd was into it,” junior Brittany Ringel said.
The victory gave UCLA a season sweep of the Washington schools,
as the Bruins had beaten Washington State on Friday night, 3-1.
More importantly, the wins kept UCLA well within
reach of finishing near the top of the conference.
At the start of the game against Washington, though, the future
seemed ominous. The Huskies dominated the Bruins in every aspect of
the game, hitting a spectacular .452 as a team. Junior Sanja
Tomasevic, Washington’s leading attacker, had seven kills,
hitting well over .500 for herself and seemed headed for a career
night. UCLA’s passing was sloppy, and the Bruins simply could
not get anything going offensively.
“Maybe we just aren’t very good coming out of the
locker room,” coach Andy Banachowski said. “Washington
played a great first game, and we were having a really hard
time.”
However, that all changed soon enough. A defensive adjustment
brought junior Chrissie Zartman closer to the net, and this slowed
the Huskies down as UCLA picked up their offense. After that
first game, Washington never managed to hit above .200 in a game,
and Tomasevic ““ despite finishing the night with a match-high
23 kills – needed 69 attempts and made 10 errors, hitting only
.188. A big reason for the change was vastly improved
blocking.
A night earlier, UCLAÂ was butchered on the block by
Washington State, getting out-blocked 14 to 5 as a
team. Against Washington, however, the Bruins raised their
total to 14, and held the Huskies to 10.
“We were more inspired to block tonight, knowing how
strong their outside hitters are,” Banachowski said.
Junior Heather Cullen was clearly inspired, recoding eight
blocks, four of them solo efforts.
“We just started getting on their side of the net. It had
a lot to do with how aggressive we were being,” Cullen said.
“It was a big-hearted effort tonight.”Â
The Bruins were led by 14 kills and .293 hitting from Ringel,
now fully recovered from injury. Cullen also had 11 kills to go
along with her efforts on the block, and junior Brynn Murphy
rounded out players in double figures with 12.
“This was the first weekend my body felt right,”
Ringel said.