With the UCLA women’s volleyball team unimpressed by its
7-5 record, head coach Andy Banachowski believes the upcoming
matches against Washington today and Washington State on Saturday
are critical.
“We’ve got to get back to even in the Pac-10 and
defend our home court,” Banachowski said.
So far, the team is winless (0-2) in conference play.
In order to turn his team’s fortune around, Banachowski
prescribes a simple solution ““ play better.
“We need to serve, attack, and block better. If we do
that, we’ll improve our record,” he said.
More important than getting even in the standings, sweeping the
Washington schools would give this young squad some much needed
confidence. With only two seniors and one junior, the Bruins are a
talented but inexperienced squad.
“These are huge games, confidence-wise,” sophomore
Krystal McFarland said. “It’s something we can really
build on.”
Injuries and inconsistency have both contributed to the
team’s lackluster start. Lauren Fendrick, arguably the
team’s best player, has been held out of practices because of
a pulled quadricep muscle. As a result, the team has not jelled
quite to Banachowski’s satisfaction.
“I think we’re a little behind our growth
curve,” he said. “We’ve had to make adjustments
every game, and just haven’t been able to have the same set
group yet.”
Similarly, errors common to such a young team have cost the
Bruins more than a few games.
“We’ve been working to cut down our mistakes on the
court,” senior Angela Eckmier said. “We’ve
defeated ourselves a couple of times already.”
The defense has been shoddy as well, as seen in late-game
meltdowns last week against Arizona and Arizona State. In practice
this week, the Bruins have stressed defensive excellence.
“Everyday we’ve started with digging drills,”
McFarland said. “I think we’ve really improved
it.”
The Bruins hope all their work will translate to wins this
weekend. Over the years, UCLA has dominated both schools in Pauley
Pavilion, but Washington has shown signs of improvement after
defeating No. 2 Hawai’i.
Still, with games scheduled against Cal and defending national
champion Stanford for the following weekend, these matches should
provide UCLA with golden opportunities to fine tune their game
before facing some of the conference’s tougher competition.
Banachowski, for one, sees hope for the future.”We’ve
got a lively young nucleus here and this is a great chance to see
them progress together as a team,” he said.