Splitting a two-match road trip is usually the norm in NCAA women’s volleyball.
But for the No. 14 UCLA Bruins, this weekend’s split in Arizona happened in the opposite order.
In a shocking upset Friday night in Tempe, Ariz., unranked Arizona State (11-3, 1-1) swept the Bruins 25-16, 25-22, 25-22, in what was the Sun Devils’ first sweep of the Bruins since 1995.
On Saturday, a recharged UCLA squad defeated No. 19 Arizona in four sets, 22-25, 27-25, 25-14, 25-13 at McKale Memorial Center in Tucson, Ariz.
Winning the final two sets against Arizona by 11 and 12 points respectively, the Bruins ended the weekend on a dominating note.
“We definitely started off a little shaky,” junior outside hitter Dicey McGraw said. “But toward the end of the weekend, we picked it up.”
Coach Andy Banachowski added that their loss to the Sun Devils, an unranked team projected to finish in the bottom half of the conference, comes as an eye-opener to how good the Pac-10 really is.
“It’s going to take a lot of hard work on everyone’s part in order to end up with a really good record,” he said.
Notably missing in the Bruins’ loss on Friday was a high-powered offensive attack. The visitors mustered a mere .131 hitting percentage compared with Arizona State’s .217 clip.
“We just didn’t play with any intensity, and Arizona State had a lot more fire than we did,” Banachowski said.
McGraw, who has been leading the Bruin offense all season, led the team with 13 kills against the Sun Devils but also racked up nine hitting errors.
The Arizona State loss, coupled with the Bruins’ two upset losses at last weekend’s Brea Embassy Suites Fullerton Classic, represented a lack of intensity from the team.
“We did lose three big games pretty much back-to-back: Fullerton, Long Beach, then Arizona State,” McGraw said.
She explained that they had a team talk after getting blanked by the Sun Devils. They discussed the team’s recent inability to play up to its potential.
“We have so much talent on the team that was being wasted,” McGraw said.
The Bruins came back the next night against Arizona with a career night from McGraw, who led the recharged UCLA offensive with 20 kills and a .350 clip.
“Our team definitely showed the maturity we have because we had such a bad loss. But in less than 24 hours we came back and played the best we played in a while,” McGraw said.
Banachowski added that the Bruins regained their focus on Saturday,
“We stopped looking at the scoreboard and worrying about the outcome and playing every point,” he said. “We did a much better job.”
Redshirt senior opposite Kaitlin Sather added nine kills with 12 digs and five blocks, while the Wildcats squeaked out a mere .101 clip.
The weekend split will likely drop the Bruins in the American Volleyball Coaches Association poll, which will be released this afternoon. This week will mark the Bruins’ second-straight week of falling in the rankings after peaking at No. 7 following their upset of then-No. 5 Nebraska.
“We didn’t start off as well as we wanted to in the Pac-10,” McGraw said. “The good news is that we’re 100 percent out of it. We played better than we played in awhile against University of Arizona.”
Classes resume for freshmen
With the Pac-10 season underway, the members of the women’s volleyball team have something on their plate: classes.
The freshmen had their first day of classes at UCLA along with a weekend trip to Arizona.
“Takes a little getting used to at first for the freshmen because they’ve never had this heavy of a workload,” McGraw said. “But I think our team is good enough to handle it.”