It’s a given that there are no easy weeks in the Pac-10.
But right about now, the No. 8 UCLA women’s volleyball team
is about to run an absolute gauntlet. Two matches against No. 7
Stanford and No. 9 California at home in Pauley Pavilion will
likely determine the postseason future for the Bruins.
What it all boils down to is that this is the single most
important week of the season.
The players all agree.
“We all know that this weekend is big for us,”
freshman Colby Lyman said.
Coach Andy Banachowski knows there is only one way to finish
second in the Pac-10, a goal the team set for itself early in the
season.
“We’ve got to win both of these games,” he
said.
The matchups between UCLA (20-5, 11-4 Pac-10) and their northern
California rivals are intriguing. The Bruins lost to the Cardinal
(17-5, 10-3) in Palo Alto in five games, squandering a 2-0 game
lead.
More interestingly, UCLA has never lost to Cal in school
history, a streak that ran to 43 games after the Bruins upset the
Golden Bears (19-4, 10-4) in five games earlier in the year.
“We’ve got a little bit of extra pressure on us just
because we’ve never lost to Cal,” junior Brynn Murphy
said.
“Beating them at Berkeley was huge, and having our home
crowd behind us will be big for us. We can’t wait to do it to
them again,” Murpy continued.
Coming off a weekend in which the team lost in poor fashion to
Arizona, then rebounded to dominate Arizona State the following
night, the team is looking for some consistency in its own game as
it gets set to face two of the best teams in the country.
“We need to make sure that we stay focused for all of the
games,” junior Krystal McFarland said. “We need to come
out ready to beat them. We know we cannot let up at any point in
the game.”
UCLA will have to deal with a slew of talented outside hitters
on the opposite side of the net. Stanford is let by Ogonna
Nnamani’s 5.31 kills per game and .308 hitting percentage.
All-American Mia Jerkov leads the Golden Bears with 5.78 kills per
game on .277 hitting.
“We’re going to be facing a lot of hard-hit balls
this week, so we’ve been practicing a lot on our
digging,” McFarland said.
The race for second in the Pac-10 has come down to one week. But
even after the team goes through the Cardinal and the Golden Bears,
the schedule gets even worse. Road matches against No. 1 USC and
No. 4 Pepperdine will cap off the regular season before the NCAA
tournament begins.
When the season began, Banachowski had no idea of the kind of
murderers’ row his team would have to face in the end.
“I probably hadn’t realized that Cal was going to
have this type of year. And I didn’t count on
Pepperdine,” he said. “It’s a tough way to finish
the season, but a great way to prepare for the
postseason.”
Still, Banachowski feels his team has already accomplished
enough to host the first two rounds of the postseason tournament,
regardless of the outcome of the next four games. UCLA has already
submitted a bid to host regionals.
“No matter what we do, we should finish high enough to
host,” he said. “But you can never tell what
they’re going to do.”
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Banachowski will be inducted Dec. 18 into the inaugural class of
the American Volleyball Coaches Association’s Hall of
Fame.