Haley Lawless has come up big for the No. 9 UCLA women’s volleyball in its last two wins.
Literally.
“She’s so big out there,” said coach Michael Sealy of his 6-foot-3 redshirt senior opposite. “(Opposing) hitters had to adjust and do other things so it’s easy to play defense around.”
Sealy decided to swap Lawless for sophomore opposite Zana Muno early in UCLA’s fifth set to help secure a win over Colorado on Friday, and made the same substitution in the second and third sets of Saturday’s win over Utah.
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Lawless doesn’t possess the same speed, agility and passing ability as Muno, who is five inches shorter, but her height makes her the team’s best right-side blocker, according to Sealy.
“To be honest, I feel like Zana and I are a perfect athlete,” Lawless said. “If we could combine ourselves, we would be really legit.”
The 6-2 rotation the Bruins have been running generally doesn’t allow Sealy to substitute defensive specialists, as most of his 15 subs are dedicated to switching out the setters and outside hitters.
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In Friday’s match however, the shortened set five gave Sealy an opportunity to send out Lawless.
“Luckily in that fifth set, you’re only playing to 15,” Sealy said. “You still have 15 subs, you’re allowed to kind of sub more people in. She was huge for us in that set.”
Lawless had two blocks, but her presence on the court also took away line shots from opposing outside hitters, meaning more hits went to the libero.
“She’s just putting a bigger body in front of those hitters,” said senior outside hitter Jordan Anderson. “So they hit away from her, so we can channel it right to Taylor Formico – who’s also just fabulous.”
Formico picked up her second Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Week, and the Bruins want to channel the ball to their senior libero as much as possible.
“(Lawless) was definitely the unsung hero of the night,” said senior middle blocker Jennie Frager.
Saturday, Lawless saw more playing time, coming in for Muno in the second and third sets to contend with Utah outside hitter Adora Anae, who ranks ninth in the nation and first in the Pac-12 with 4.73 kills per set.
Sealy has been cautious with her playing time, though, both in practice and in games.
“She’s been touch and go with some of her injury stuff so it’s kind of using her when we can in practice,” Sealy said. “She’s our best right side blocker so we try to put her in the role as much as we can.”
Before this weekend, Lawless had not seen any playing time since early October when the UCLA last faced Arizona. The Bruin’s next game is on the road against the Wildcats on Friday at 6 p.m.