Losing both matches in a home series is not something the No. 7 UCLA women’s volleyball team is accustomed to.
Not one of the Bruins (16-6, 6-5 Pac-10) had ever experienced going 0-2 in a home series until this weekend, as the team fell to No. 3 Stanford (20-2, 9-2 Pac-10) on Friday and No. 9 California (17-5, 7-4 Pac-10) on Saturday.
Saturday night’s match against California was an especially tough loss for UCLA. The Bears won 27-30, 30-20, 27-30, 30-27, 17-15.
UCLA and Cal were fairly matched throughout the night. Momentum seemed to shift from one team to another, as evidenced by the 18 instances of tied score and nine lead changes.
One of the keys to the Bears’ upset was their senior outside hitter Angie Pressey. At only 5-foot-8, Pressey has a vertical that goes well above the rim of a basketball hoop. She was able to hit over the Bruins’ block and finished the game with a match-high 26 kills.
“She is not that tall and she has massive hops and hits really hard,” junior libero Jade Machado said.
In the third game, the Bruins won several of the long rallies and were leading 25-18 when California called a timeout. The time-out paid dividends for the Bears, as they went on an 8-1 run to tie the score at 26-26. The Bruins then went on a 4-1 run of their own to end the game at 30-27 with a dump by junior setter Nellie Spicer.
Things did not go the way the Bruins would have hoped in the fourth game when Cal took the lead at 18-17 and never looked back. In the fifth game, the Bears went up 11-8. UCLA then tied the game at 13-13.
At that point, the Bruins successfully contained three of Pressey’s attempts through solid blocking and defense. However, California did not stop setting to Pressey, as her next two attacks resulted in crucial kills to help the Bears win the game and match.
One positive note for the Bruins from the match was that Spicer had 49 assists to move up to third place on UCLA’s all-time career assists list.
California is an example of a program that was once non-threatening and is now a Pac-10 and postseason contender. This is only the second time UCLA has lost to the Bears in the history of the series between the two teams.
On Friday, the Bruins fell to Stanford in four games 30-20, 28-30, 30-22, 30-27.
UCLA did challenge the Cardinal in the second game, as both teams stayed evenly matched throughout most of the set. When UCLA had the 29-28 advantage, a kill by junior outside/opposite hitter Kaitlin Sather put away the game for the Bruins.
In the end, Stanford proved to be too much, winning the next two games to take the match, defeating UCLA for the second time this year.
“(Stanford) had good hitters and blockers,” Machado said. “We had a lot more rallies (than against California). They were just executing every play.”
Sather finished with a season-high 20 kills and 18 digs, while Machado had 19 digs.
The Bruins will take this upcoming week to reevaluate team dynamics. According to the team, if the Bruins want to have a successful playoff run, they first needs to prove they can get wins over Pac-10 teams.
“We need to make some changes obviously, because what we did was not good enough,” Sather said. “We need to play more as a team and more consistently, because obviously we have the potential and we can hang with these teams.”