Sunday might have hurt his team’s chances at a top-16 seed in the NCAA Tournament, but coach Michael Sealy didn’t care.
The final result, a 3-2 loss to the No. 23 Arizona Wildcats (18-12, 8-10 Pac-12), mattered less to the women’s volleyball coach than the valiant comeback effort staged by the No. 11 Bruins (22-6, 13-5).
“It’s not an upsetting loss. It was actually a very, very entertaining match,” Sealy said. “The team grew and did some amazing things.”
After losing the first two sets, UCLA set out to come back from a 2-0 deficit for the first time all year. The Bruins almost did it, winning the third and fourth sets before stumbling in the deciding fifth set.
Result aside, the match resembled UCLA’s Friday night victory over No. 24 Arizona State (19-10, 8-10), a 3-2 victory in which the Bruins rallied from a 2-1 deficit.
“The matches were literally the same – it’s not the cleanest volleyball but it’s got a lot of heart, got a lot of guts,” Sealy said. “So to come to the desert, not be firing on all cylinders, and come out with a split, we’re happy with it.”
Sealy helped orchestrate Sunday’s comeback effort with a series of lineup changes after the first two sets.
He inserted freshman Kyra Rogers as a middle blocker and redshirt sophomore Jessyka Ngauamo as an outside hitter on the right side, as well as replacing freshman setter Zana Muno with senior Michaela Leonard.
“The offense wasn’t really clicking,” Sealy said. “So just throw in a new flow and see what happens.”
What happened was just what Sealy wanted – the Bruins turned around an attack that had hit under .200 in each of the first two sets, boosting that number to .300 in the third set.
“We were super fired up for everyone that was coming in making a difference,” said sophomore outside hitter Reily Buechler.
UCLA leaned heavily on Buechler Sunday, as she led the team with 26 kills on a whopping 68 attempts. Buechler said the Wildcats’ blockers moved to their spots quickly, which helped allow the Bruins to attack matchups with Wildcat setter Penina Snuka.
“They pick where they want to go early so we’re able to get one-on-ones on the outside, incredible for us,” Buechler said. “The setter sets whoever has the smallest blocker – that’s how we got our kills today on the outside.”
It required communication between the hitters and the new setter, Leonard.
“We were just trying to play with the blocks,” Leonard said. “If they were going with our middles, we were trying to get one-on-ones with our outside hitters.”
For Arizona, leading hitter Kalei Mau hit just .127 on 71 attempts, but outside hitter Tyler Spriggs and senior opposite Nikki Attea combined for 41 kills in support. Sealy said UCLA didn’t do a good enough job of taking away Attea’s ability to hit the ball down the line on the right side.
The Bruins might not have been able to complete the comeback, but Sealy said they showed marked improvement over previous teams.
“I’m proud of them,” Sealy said. “These same girls, last year or a couple years ago, would have folded with one-tenth the amount of pressure and adversity. So the amount that they’ve grown mentally and emotionally in the last two years is huge.”