After taking care of two of the weaker teams in the Pac-10 at
home, the UCLA women’s volleyball team is getting two key
weapons back from injury just in time, as the competition is about
to get ratcheted up a notch.
The No. 8 Bruins (10-2, 2-1 Pac-10) will travel to Washington
State to face the Cougars (5-8, 2-2) on Thursday, then go down to
Seattle to face the No. 13 Washington Huskies (11-2, 2-2) on
Friday. This past year, this road trip proved to be a nightmare for
UCLA, as the Bruins lost a tough five-game decision to the Cougars,
and then were blown out 3-0 by the Huskies.
“At this point our main focus is getting the wins on the
road here and maintaining the style and intensity that we’ve
been playing at,” coach Andy Banachowski said.
Still, the players aren’t denying that these games have
some extra meaning behind them.
“I would just say that we have revenge in our minds right
now,” junior Krystal McFarland said. “We know what
happened last year, and I think we have a little more fire going
into this match.”
The motivation is clearly there, and fortunately for UCLA, the
team has got its depth back. Junior Brittany Ringel and freshman
Becky Green are both recovered enough from their ankle sprains that
they will likely see playing time.
Senior Zanda Bautre leads the Cougars with a respectable 3.49
kills per game. The Huskies leader in kills is junior Sanja
Tomasevic, with an impressive average of 5.65 per game. In both
cases, each team leans heavily upon their stars in order to score
offensively, and UCLA will likely focus its defensive efforts on
stopping these key players.
“Both of the Washington schools have an outside player
that has been carrying the load for them,” Banachowski
said.
The other major task will be dealing with the hostile crowds.
Both schools have tremendously loud crowds that vocally support
their teams, especially at Washington State.
“We’ve done well on the road in the preseason, but
now we’ve got to go up against bigger home crowds,”
Banachowski said.
Perhaps even more troubling for UCLA is the fact that Washington
recently dropped two straight matches to Cal and Stanford, and are
badly looking to beat a ranked team.
“I think they’re going to come out and play really
hard,” junior libero Chrissie Zartman said. “We just
need to focus on playing our game.”
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The match against Washington State will be televised via
tape-delay on Fox Sports Net.
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Andy Banachowski is one win away from the 950th of his career.
His coaching record currently stands at 949-237, an astounding .800
wining percentage.