The Bruins are sick and tired of playing five-game matches.
Every time the No. 9 UCLA women’s volleyball team has gone on
the road in the Pac-10, it’s gone the possible full measure.
Although they’ve been mostly successful ““ three wins
against Washington, Washington State and California, one loss to
Stanford ““ the team knows they can’t afford to keep
participating in these marathons.
“We want to break that trend, that’s for
sure,” coach Andy Banachowski said. “We’ve got to
get a couple wins in fewer than five games.”
The Bruins (14-4, 6-3 Pac-10) will play the weakest teams in the
conference as they head to Oregon to play the Ducks (3-15, 0-9),
who are winless in the conference, on Thursday and then Oregon
State (12-9, 2-7) on Friday.
UCLA should dominate on this road swing. The Bruins won the
previous matches against these schools in Pauley Pavilion earlier
in the season, sweeping the Ducks 3-0 and beating the Beavers 3-1.
In fact, UCLA has lost only once to Oregon in the entire history of
competition between the two schools at 38-1, and is 34-2 all-time
against Oregon State.
More important, perhaps, than merely winning the matches is the
way in which they win. The team has struggled at times with its
offense, in particular its hitting efficiency.
“We’ve won a few games based on something other than
our hitting, and I’d like for us to win a few matches with
good hitting performances,” Banachowski said. “I want
us to improve our hitting percentages. They’ve been dropping
steadily as we’ve played tougher opponents, and that’s
something we want to get back up.”
With Stanford, Cal and UCLA battling for position behind
front-runner USC in the Pac-10, the Bruins are facing a situation
in which they could potentially pick up a few games on the
conference leaders.
“We absolutely can’t afford to lose any
ground,” Banachowski said. “Both schools have great
home crowds. It’ll be a tough weekend again even though these
are not ranked teams.”
UCLA is just hoping it won’t be five-game tough.