UCLA hosts meeting discussing national impact of teacher strikes in LA

UCLA labor advocates and experts analyzed the tactics and impact of the Los Angeles teacher strikes on teacher strikes nationwide Thursday.

Thousands of Los Angeles Unified School District teachers went on strike late January demanding smaller class sizes and increased staffing for public schools. Within five days, the district committed to reducing class sizes and hiring 300 nurses in addition to a 6 percent pay raise for teachers within the next two years.

Joshua Pechthalt, president of California Federation of Teachers, said he believes the strike, organized by United Teachers Los Angeles, became popular because UTLA organizers prioritized student concerns instead of teacher wages. UTLA is a union composed of several other organizations to advocate on behalf of LAUSD teachers and personnel.

“The fact that student concerns were put in the forefront inspired other factions of the working class to rise up,” Pechthalt said.

Eric Blanc, a panelist and former high school teacher, said he thinks unions should avoid prioritizing teacher wages.

“Unions should be fighting not only for teachers but for students and parents as well,” Blanc said.

Blanc, who wrote Red State Revolt, a book analyzing the recent teacher strikes, added he thinks the teacher strike is part of a larger movement mobilizing the working class across the country to fight for better working conditions.

“Teachers are at the forefront of the strike wave because of their ties to the community. (Their) structural leverage prevents them from being isolated and marginalized,” Blanc said.

Pechthalt, who has more than 20 years of experience as a high school teacher in Los Angeles, said teachers receive an almost immediate response to their demands because they play a fundamental role in communities across the nation.

“If schools are not in function, there are very few families in America that aren’t affected,” Pechthalt said.

Other attendees of the meeting said they shared Pechthalt and Blanc’s enthusiasm for the teacher strikes and the broader working class uprising.

Barry Eidlin, a sociology professor at McGill University who attended Thursday’s meeting, said he thinks the UTLA strike has had a historic impact on educational politics.

“Strikes are made to seem like they don’t work, but this is one of the first times a strike has scored big,” Eidlin said.

Both Pechthalt and Blanc said they predict more teachers will mobilize across the country, pointing to recent strikes in other states such as West Virginia and Arizona, as well as in California in Oakland and likely similar ones in Sacramento and Fresno in the near future.

“In the short term there is no foreseeable end to the strike wave,” Blanc said.

Beach volleyball remains undefeated with near-perfect showing in Hawaii

The Bruins fell just one match short of completing a perfect weekend.

No. 1 UCLA beach volleyball (5-0) finished undefeated at the Outrigger Duke Kahanamoku Beach Classic in Hawaii. UCLA defeated No. 11 Stanford (0-4), St. Mary’s (1-3), No. 5 Hawai’i (2-2) and No. 4 Pepperdine (3-1) by scores of 5-0, 5-0, 5-0 and 4-1, respectively.

Coach Stein Metzger said even though the weather conditions were not ideal, his team dug deep and found a way to win each time out this weekend.

“I think the team showed a lot of resiliency,” Metzger said. “We were down in many of our games, but they showed a lot of patience. It was gusty and windy today, and I thought they handled that well.”

The Bruins are 9-0 in the third set this season, including seniors Nicole and Megan McNamara’s comeback against the Waves this weekend. The twins lost the first game and were down 19-17 in the second before rallying back and taking both the second and third set by a score of 24-22.

Junior Lily Justine said the Bruins have performed well in the third set this season because they are free from stress with other duos performing well.

“Going into third games is tough because there’s a lot of pressure on you,” Justine said. “But it’s not just you. There’s four other teams and it’s nice to know that my other teammates have my back. Honestly we just say, ‘Let’s go out there and have fun and do us.’”

The Bruins swept the Rainbow Wahine in a complete flip of last season. UCLA was swept 5-0 in its first matchup against Hawai’i last season.

The Bruins finished off the matches this year with a kill from senior Sarah Sponcil to clinch the 5-0 victory. Metzger said the experiences his team carried over from last year helped push the Bruins past opponents that beat them last year.

“(The wins are) due to having an experienced team and having five seniors,” Metzger said. “That really goes a long way. They’ve been through the ringer. They understand what it takes to show up when you go to different locations.”

UCLA will play again Wednesday against crosstown rival No. 2 USC (0-0). The Bruins went 5-1 against the Trojans last season.

Freshman Abby Van Winkle said the team will look to recover before their midweek matchup with their top-two rival after flying back from the Aloha State.

“We need to rest up because we’re coming back in tonight,” Van Winkle said. “I think we’re just pumped up and (have) lots of energy going into it because it is USC. Everyone is going to be fired up because it is (our rival).”

Men’s volleyball defeats USC in straight sets, defends conference streak

The Bruins protected their undefeated conference record with a straight-set victory.

No. 6 UCLA (12-4, 4-0 MPSF) defeated No. 14 USC (7-7, 1-3) 3-0 on Sunday night at Pauley Pavilion. The win marked the Bruins’ fourth straight conference win to remain tied atop the MPSF with No. 4 Pepperdine, which is also 4-0.

“We brought the energy tonight,” said redshirt junior opposite Brandon Rattray. “UCLA versus USC is a big rivalry, so we knew we had to come out tonight and fire it up. The service pressure from us was great and the blocking was pretty solid.”

Rattray led the Bruins with 17 kills and posted his most efficient attacking game of the season, hitting .583.

Rattray said his offensive performance stemmed from strong chemistry between him and senior setter Micah Ma’a.

“We’ve been working on some new connection stuff, (Ma’a) and I,” Rattray said. “(Ma’a) was putting the ball in the right spot tonight and the blocking just wasn’t there, so we just hammered it home.”

The Bruins tallied 12 service aces against the Trojans, their second-highest mark of the season. Coach John Speraw said USC’s errors aided UCLA’s approach from the service line.

“Obviously they didn’t have their best passing night,” Speraw said. “I don’t think some of those aces go down versus Long Beach and Hawai’i, so I think we’re going to have to continue to figure out ways to score behind our serve.”

Ma’a said strong passing helped the Bruins control the match.

“We passed really well,” Ma’a said. “It’s kind of been a staple of our offense, going down the middle of the court. We needed to stay in system for that, and the passers did an amazing job.”

Speraw said the Bruins’ passing aided junior middle blocker Daenan Gyimah’s offensive approach.

“I thought we passed well enough to (Gyimah) a good number of balls,” Speraw said.

Gyimah hit for .722 and posted 14 kills. Sunday’s performance brought Gyimah’s season hitting percentage to .554, the highest percentage in the nation.

The Trojans’ largest lead of the night was a margin of two points, with the score 14-12 in the second set and 9-7 and 10-8 in the third set.

Rattray said the Bruins were able to maintain the lead for most of the night by remaining calm, even when the score was close.

“We could be down five or six, seven points and we would stay nice and poised,” Rattray said. “We just know that we have enough talent and that we can push through.”

Ma’a said the win put UCLA in a positive state of mind heading into Wednesday’s match against Pepperdine.

“It helps our confidence for sure,” Ma’a said. “We’ve put two pretty clean wins back to back together, which helps our confidence, our trust and some of our connections.”

The Bruins will host the Waves on Wednesday at Pauley Pavilion at 7 p.m.

Women’s water polo wins some, loses some in nonconference invitational

The Bruins wrapped up their nonconference schedule in Irvine this weekend.

No. 3 UCLA women’s water polo (16-3) battled No. 17 Long Beach State (4-8), No. 6 Michigan (8-7) and No. 2 Stanford (10-1) and finished in fourth place after a 7-6 overtime loss to No. 4 California (10-2) at the Barbara Kalbus Invitational.

“As a whole on the weekend, we had great progression in a lot of areas,” said coach Adam Wright. “The reality is that we played really well against Long Beach and Michigan and created some great opportunities against Cal and Stanford, but we continued to give away easy goals.”

The Golden Bears had a 4-0 lead at the half, but the Bruins kept inching closer in the second half until the game was tied at four-all with just under three minutes to play.

Cal jumped to a 6-5 lead after the first overtime period. Both teams scored once in the second overtime period, and the Bears came out on top.

Senior goalkeeper Carlee Kapana started all four games of the Barbara Kalbus Invitational. She piled up 36 saves on the weekend, 10 of which came against Cal.

“For me it’s all about remembering the opponent’s tendencies and being alert at all times,” Kapana said. “Where they like to shoot is always is in the back of mind, as well as just trusting my instinct and reacting to the shot.”

One year ago, UCLA and Stanford squared off in the semifinal game of the Barbara Kalbus invitational.

The Cardinal went on to beat the Bruins 10-3, and this year’s matchup yielded the same result – almost with the same score.

Stanford started out with a 4-0 lead in the first quarter and nearly shut out UCLA for the entire first half, but junior attacker Bronte Halligan was able to erase the Bruins’ zero on the scoreboard and make the score 5-1 at the break.

The Bruins would get no closer than four goals in what would end as a 10-4 Cardinal win, making it four straight losses for UCLA against Stanford.

Despite the two losses, UCLA kicked off the tournament with a 16-6 win over Long Beach State on Friday and a 15-5 win over Michigan.

“I think we played really well and really committed to playing our game,” said junior attacker Maddie Musselman. “We never had to get too tricky or go outside of what we needed to do in the first two games, and that’s something we kind of strayed away from in the last two games.”

Senior center Sarah Sheldon turned in a season-high and career-high-tying three goals against the 49ers. Musselman, senior attacker Louise Hazell and freshman attackers Val Ayala and Bella Baia all got in on the scoring surge as well, each finding the net twice.

Musselman led the Bruins with a hat trick, and Sheldon, Baia, Halligan, and sophomore attacker Roxy Wheaton each added two goals of their own against the Wolverines.

Against Michigan, the score was tied at one after the first frame, but UCLA went on to score eight unanswered goals while not allowing a score for over 11 minutes of action. Seven more Bruin goals led to their 16th win of the year.

This marked the last tournament for UCLA until April’s conference championships.

Wright said the Bruins are fortunate for all the nonconference tournaments and the teams that they played, but their work is cut out for them.

“We have another chance against Cal on Sunday, and hopefully we can clean up the things we need to work on,” Wright said. “We have to get better at shooting, better on our 6-on-5 and we have to be better at being us.”

Women’s basketball breaks on-the-road winning streak with loss to Oregon State

Down by three with the game clock approaching zero, the Bruins gave the ball to their best 3-point shooter.

But senior guard Japreece Dean couldn’t sink the shot this time.

“They knew what play we were going to and they overplayed it,” said senior guard Kennedy Burke. “But (Dean) has practiced that shot a lot, and it just didn’t go in. Overall it was a good fight for us, but we just came up short.”

UCLA women’s basketball (17-11, 10-6 Pac 12) fell to No. 12 Oregon State (23-5, 13-3) 75-72 on Sunday afternoon, remaining winless in Corvallis since 2013.

The Bruins were down by as many as seven points in the final quarter, facing a 64-57 deficit. UCLA held Oregon State scoreless for two minutes and strung together a 6-0 run to tie the game at 68 with 2 minutes, 57 seconds left, but it was not enough to secure the comeback.

“It’s obviously really disappointing to lose,” said coach Cori Close. “We were right there and we had opportunities. … We got really good shots but we just didn’t make some of them.”

The Bruins controlled much of the first quarter, earning 10 more possessions than the Beavers – despite allowing Oregon State to shoot 50 percent from the field.

The Bruins held a 20-13 lead going into the second, but the Beavers outscored UCLA 26-15 in the period and ended the half shooting over 50 percent from the field. UCLA was down 39-35 going into halftime.

“They caught us falling asleep sometimes,” Burke said. “They were just able to get those easy shots and kick out to shooters to get the best shot they could get and that’s what made them come back.”

The Bruins battled back the third quarter, trading consecutive points with the Beavers. UCLA closed the deficit to tie the game at 54 going into the final period.

Close said UCLA focused on making defensive adjustments in the fourth quarter to limit Oregon State’s scoring.

“We told (the team) that we needed to make (Oregon State) a little more uncomfortable on the defensive end,” Close said. “They were trying to get (Oregon State guard Katie) McWilliams at the post versus (redshirt freshman guard Lindsey) Corsaro or against Dean and we needed to make those passes difficult.”

But the Bruins allowed the Beavers to go on a 7-0 run early in the fourth, and were not able to regain the lead for the remainder of the contest. UCLA entered the game on a five-game road winning streak, with their last loss coming against then-No. 6 Stanford on Jan. 6.

Despite the loss, redshirt senior forward Lajahna Drummer said these past two games against the Oregon teams have shown that the Bruins are ready for the Pac-12 tournament.

“We just know that if we give it our all and do what we know how to do best, then we will be in a great position,” Drummer said.