As the saying goes, a good team beats every opponent that people
expect them to. A great team defeats opponents they are predicted
to lose to.
By those standards, the UCLA women’s volleyball team is
only a good team. Midway through their conference schedule, the
Bruins (11-7, 4-5 Pac-10) have established a trend from which they
have been unable to deviate.
All of UCLA’s wins this season have come against unranked
teams, while they have lost to every ranked opponent they
faced.
The No. 21 Bruins’ two matches last weekend continued the
trend, as the team lost to No. 8 Arizona (15-2, 7-1) but defeated
unranked Arizona State (6-13, 1-8).
“We’ve got to step up our play and get some wins
over teams that are ranked higher than us,” UCLA coach Andy
Banachowski said. “It’s good that we can beat teams
that we are supposed to and not falter at all, but we’re
setting our sights on somebody ranked ahead of us.”
In the match against Arizona on Friday night, the Bruins played
well in front of 1,988 fans but were unable to overcome the
superior Wildcats, falling 30-27, 16-30, 23-30, 28-30.
UCLA got off to a great start, taking Game 1 with five team
service aces and a season-high 10 digs from freshman Jordan Smith.
Things only went down from there as the Bruins lost the next three
games despite having leads of 5-0 in Game 3 and 13-5 in Game 4.
Poor hitting was a factor for UCLA, with the team hitting .147
in Game 2 en route to a dismal .113 match hitting percentage. Even
the team’s top hitter, freshman Kaitlin Sather, only managed
to hit .200 with 20 kills in 65 swings against a very strong
Arizona defense.
“Arizona is a top-10 team, and they’ve shown
themselves to be that strong,” Banachowski said. “Their
hitting was great all around all night.
“Nobody let down, and that’s just experience on
their part. They know when to hit the ball hard and when to mix up
the shots, and that’s something we still haven’t
gotten.”
There were several high points for the Bruins on Friday, as the
team served a season-high 12 aces and Smith and freshman Nellie
Spicer eclipsed their career highs for digs with 23 and 19,
respectively.
“It was good to see us come out and be aggressive with our
serving, and I was happy with the way we played at certain
stretches of the game,” Banachowski said. “Arizona was
just a little bit more experienced and knew how to handle the
pressure better.”
Facing a much lesser opponent Saturday, the Bruins played like
they had the night before, but this time were able to come up with
a 30-23, 33-31, 17-30, 30-23 victory over Arizona State.
After a quick win in Game 1, the Bruins faced a tougher Sun
Devils team in Game 2. Arizona State came back from an early
deficit to tie the game 31-31, but a kill by junior Katie Carter
and an ace from Smith sealed the Bruins’ win.
UCLA was not so fortunate in Game 3, as the team fell behind
early and never recovered, hitting 14 errors in the game, compared
to their 10 kills.
“Obviously, we were kind of dead in the third game,”
Smith said. “We came out totally flat and looked like we were
just walking around. We need to work on concentrating for the whole
match and playing with a high energy level the whole
time.”
The Bruins stayed right with Arizona State in Game 4 until the
game was tied 18-18, when the Bruins seemed to find an increased
level of energy, reeling off nine straight points to give them the
lead for good.
“I feel like we played pretty aggressively tonight,”
junior Nana Meriwether said. “Our serving was good and our
defense was really on, especially in the back row.”
The win over Arizona State featured the Bruins’ best
digging performance of the season. Easily surpassing the
team’s previous high of 80 digs, the Bruins tallied 103 digs
in only four games.
Five players had double-digit digging performances, highlighted
by 32 digs from Smith, exceeding her career-high from the night
before.
With 10 games left on their schedule, the Bruins are confident
they can improve their record against ranked opponents in the
coming weeks.
“I think we’re getting there,” Meriwether
said. “Now we’ve seen everyone in the Pac-10 and we
know what people are bringing to us. Hopefully in the second round,
we’ll bring it on. We’re improving all the time and
getting a lot of experience, and that should prepare us for
what’s coming up.”