Men’s volleyball takes down Lewis in second straight win against top-10 team

The Bruins finished their trip to the Midwest with two wins, both against top-10 opponents.

No. 5 UCLA men’s volleyball (8-2) defeated No. 10 Lewis 3-1 at the Neil Carey Arena in Romeoville, Illinois, on Saturday after besting No. 7 Loyola Chicago (7-3) on Thursday.

UCLA fell in the first set 25-18 as Lewis hit for .520 and logged only three errors, while the Bruins hit for .222. Junior middle blocker Daenan Gyimah said the Bruins’ confidence has improved, as well as their ability to respond when behind.

“In both of these games actually, we were down, so (we used) the confidence we have in ourselves to still push through and win when we’re down,” Gyimah said. “It was great for us mentally. We’re just more confident.”

UCLA hit for .536 and recorded 17 kills in the second set en route to a 25-20 win. Three Bruins – senior outside hitter Dylan Missry, Gyimah and redshirt freshman setter Adam Parks – finished the match with 10 or more kills, recording 18, 12 and 10, respectively.

Missry said the Bruins played well all-around, especially after falling in the first set.

“We just scrapped, we played some good defense, we hit our serves, and I think we did a good job of scouting Lewis and we got on their tendency and started scoring some real points,” Missry said.

Redshirt junior opposite Brandon Rattray leads the Bruins in kills with 113 but missed the matchup due to a toe injury. Coach John Speraw said UCLA was forced to adapt to past tactics to fill in for Rattray’s absence.

“Rattray was hurt tonight, so it forced us to look at a couple different options and we went back to the 6-2 that we ran a couple years ago with Adam Parks and we only had one practice with it, so (I’m) very pleased with how that all worked out,” Speraw said. “It was good to see that we have versatility.”

Parks also logged 22 assists for the Bruins, second behind senior setter Micah Ma’a, who recorded 29. Parks had played four matches before the Lewis matchup with no kills or assists.

UCLA hit for .242 and .353 in the third and fourth sets, respectively. The Bruins hit a game-high 18 kills in the final set of the match, winning 25-20, while holding the Flyers to seven kills. The Bruins held the Flyers to .156 and .042 in the same sets, respectively, and logged three services aces and 10 blocks themselves.

Speraw said the win wasn’t just due to strong serving or defense, but executing on offensive chances.

“I thought we served tough, but mostly I think the best thing was that we just played some good defense and transition volleyball, which hasn’t yet this season been a great strength of ours,” Speraw said. “I also thought that considering (Parks) hasn’t had much of an opportunity to set (for) a lot of these players, like Gyimah, I thought he did a great job.”

UCLA will return home next week to face No. 8 Stanford and No. 3 Brigham Young in its first two matches of Mountain Pacific Sports Federation conference play.

Swim and dive remains resolute after Stanford, Cal break undefeated streak

The Bruins’ undefeated record came to an end this weekend.

In a weekend trip to the Bay Area filled with Pac-12 championship implications, No. 20 UCLA swim and dive (8-2) suffered back-to-back losses to two-time defending champion No. 3 Stanford (6-0) and two-time runner-up No. 4 California (7-1) by scores of 163-128 and 167-130, respectively.

“There were lots of great races this weekend, and I don’t feel like we were outmanned or outmatched,” said swimming coach Cyndi Gallagher. “The girls did a good job not backing down, even though they were facing former Olympians and national champs on both sides.”

The Stanford meet featured standout performances from juniors Kenisha Liu and Amy Okada, who rattled off victories in the 100-yard freestyle and 100-yard butterfly at 49.80 and 54.48, respectively.

Okada again claimed first in the 100-yard butterfly the following day at Berkeley with a 54.12 mark. Senior Emma Schanz also won the 200-yard breaststroke with a time of 2:15.40, while freshman Claire Grover grabbed the top time in the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 1:02.20.

But Stanford and Cal’s deep, talent-laden rosters ultimately proved too difficult to handle.

The Bruins’ A Team came close to winning several of their relays, including the 200-yard medley on Friday and Saturday – but were narrowly defeated in both.

Despite dropping both of their meets this weekend, the team remains confident heading into the final stretch of the season.

“Even though we didn’t win, our confidence is definitely boosted moving forward,” Liu said. “Watching how close we were was really exciting. We know we’re right there and that we can compete with the best of them.”

On the diving side, senior Eloise Belanger led the Bruins on Friday with a duo of strong performances, edging Stanford’s Carolina Sculti in the 1-meter springboard championship 314.18 to 313.95, and sweeping the 3-meter with a score of 348.38.

“Since (Belanger) overcame Sculti by just .23 points on the 1-meter, I don’t know that the scoring could have been closer,” said diving coach Tom Stebbins. “It was a great contest. I look forward to them battling through the end of this year.”

Belanger remained consistent throughout Saturday, notching a first-place finish in the 1-meter championship with a 304.88 mark, while finishing in third behind fellow Bruin Alice Yanovsky in the 3-meter.

“(Belanger) is trending up at the right time. There is still so much more available to her, and to our entire group,” Stebbins said. “We have another month before the Pac-12 championship, so we will move them forward inch by inch every day with the postseason goals that we have for ourselves in mind.”

The UCLA swim and dive team will next see action when it travels across town to compete against rival USC over Presidents’ Day weekend.

UC librarians continue negotiating with UCOP over contracts

This post was updated Feb. 5 at 2:25 p.m.

University of California librarians and the UC Office of the President have been out of contract for four months but are still negotiating.

University Council-American Federation of Teachers Unit 17, a union representing UC librarians, bargained with UCOP on Friday marking its 10th month of negotiations. Its contract expired Sept. 30 but will remain in effect with some changes until a new contract is struck.

Martin Brennan, a UCLA librarian and member of the UC-AFT negotiating team, said in an email statement UCOP offered a temporary contract extension, but the union denied that request to pressure UCOP to come to a timely agreement for a new contract.

“If the contract is expired, it shows the University is stalling in the process,” Brennan said. “Only UCOP benefits from a temporary contract extension, as it relieves that pressure to reach a timely agreement.”

Brennan said by denying the contract extension, the union gained the right to declare a strike once an impasse is declared and both parties have exhausted all post-impasse resolution procedures. He added that the union is not considering striking anytime soon.

Brennan said the union and UCOP have scheduled further bargaining sessions through March. However, he said negotiations will likely continue past March.

UCOP has rejected the majority of their past proposals without providing an explanation as to why they disagree, Brennan said.

“We still have quite a lot of issues that are unresolved, things that we have proposed that they have not adequately responded to in any kind of way other than a flat no,” Brennan said. “We still have many issues that we need to get clarity on before we can reach a deal.”

UCOP spokesperson Claire Doan said UCOP is working hard to reach a long-term contract that includes fair pay, quality health care and excellent retirement benefits.

While negotiations were going on, UC-AFT held a bake sale outside Charles E. Young Research Library to increase awareness of the librarians’ issues and to raise money for their newly launched strike fund in case the union declares a strike.

UCLA librarians wore a sticker with the words “Where’s Melissa?” during the bake sale to raise awareness of the misuse of temporary contracts at UCLA, said Shira Peltzman, digital archivist in the Library Special Collections department.

Melissa Haley was a temporary librarian in the Library Special Collections department until her contract ended Jan. 29, Peltzman said.

The union filed a grievance in May 2018, alleging UCLA was abusing temporary contract positions in the Library Special Collections by filling permanent positions with temporary librarians, according to the grievance.

The union wants to include language in the contract to protect librarians from the misuse of temporary contracts, Peltzman said.

Rebecca Fordon, a faculty services librarian at the law library, said the librarians’ salary has not kept up with inflation. Moreover, she said UCLA has been having trouble hiring librarians because the salary is insufficient, leaving positions unfilled and adding strain onto other librarians.

Starting salaries for UC librarians with experience is $54,700 per year and $49,000 per year for those without experience, according to UC-AFT.

On average, UC entry-level librarians earn at least 25.5 percent less than entry-level librarians at California State Universities, according to UC-AFT.

Brennan said the union wants librarians’ salary to increase between 22 and 26 percent over the next three years.

UCOP is offering a 3 percent wage increase upon ratification of the contract and an annual wage increase of 3 percent through the 2021-2022 fiscal year, Doan said.

Brennan added that the union wants the protection of academic freedom included in the contract, such that librarians can freely express themselves in their teaching, research and professional work.

Brennan said UCOP formed a committee to make UC-wide policy recommendations on whether nonfaculty members, such as librarians and other researchers, should have something similar to academic freedom. He added that UCOP proposed the committee as a counter to its proposal on academic freedom being included in the contract.

Brennan said the union did not accept the proposal, but because the committee has already been formed, UCOP no longer considers this to be a topic of bargaining.

“It’s their position that academic freedom is no longer a subject of bargaining, (but) we absolutely do not agree with that position,” Brennan said.

Brennan said it could take years before they come up with policy recommendations if they take as long as other UC-wide committees.

Janet Rivera, a third-year sociology student, said she supports librarians because they do a lot for students.

“I mean, we use the library collectively every day or like a lot of students use it,” Rivera said. “It’s important to give back to these spaces that help all of us engage as scholars here on campus.”

The next bargaining session is scheduled for Feb. 22 at UC Santa Cruz.

 

Law professors speak on how voting process changes could increase turnout in 2020

Law professors said they expect the 2020 elections to have a higher voter turnout due to a rise in new voting technologies and reforms that make the voting process more inclusive and enable more people to register to vote and cast ballots.

The event, which was hosted at the Hammer Museum on Thursday evening, discussed the logistics of voting and incidences of voter suppression and negligence of polling booths and technologies in the 2018 election.

The panel was moderated by Rick Hasen, a UC Irvine political science and law professor. Hasen divided the panel into three main topics: election administration, redistricting and gerrymandering, and money in politics.

Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School, said he would give the U.S. election system a grade of a B-.

“If you believe as I do that we should be building a system that accommodates every right and opportunity and expectation that every eligible American would participate, we have a very long way to go,” Levitt said.

Levitt added that barely 50 percent of eligible American voters participated in the 2018 midterm elections and barely 60 percent voted in the 2016 presidential election.

Kathay Feng, executive director of California Common Cause, a political advocacy organization, said it is much harder to vote in the United States, as she thinks voting has become highly weaponized and politicized.

“In California, in 2020 there is going to be a change in the very way in how we run elections, certainly in Los Angeles,” Feng said.

Feng said Los Angeles County will be implementing voter centers, which will allow people to vote anywhere in the county rather than being tied to a particular polling location. She added that these centers will feature same-day voting registration and new voting systems, currently being developed by LA County.

She added that the U.S. also struggles with voter fraud, which prevents people from registering to vote and turning in ballots on time.

“Voter suppression refers to when lawful voters are denied the right to cast their ballot, whereas voter fraud or vote rigging is when people take someone else’s identity to vote for a favored candidate, ultimately increasing the chances for a particular candidate to win,” Feng said.

Franita Tolson, a USC law professor said voter fraud is very rare, but it discourages people from registering to vote because they believe fraud occurs more often than it does.

“Voter fraud is rare and it doesn’t really happen,” Tolson said. “A big part of our system is when voters believe our system is working.”

However, Tolson said, she thinks future elections will become more inclusive. She added that she predicts the 2020 elections will be more inclusive with more people participating in elections than in previous years.

Ella Montouri, a fourth-year political science student, said she was concerned about getting more students to participate in the next election.

“Looking at the disaster of voting at UCLA this past election, it directly impacts us, especially with students. It is so hard to get students to register to vote before elections,” Montouri said.

Montouri, who worked on student voter campaigns, said she believes UCLA needs encourage more students to vote, especially on campus.

Tolson added that she believes the only way to get more students to vote is to have civically engaged young voters spread awareness of the importance of voting to their peers.

“Students don’t feel like it matters. … It starts with young people,” Tolson said. “The only way we can get young people to vote is if young people can convince other young people that voting is worthwhile.”

 

Gymnastics lands top score of season in victory over Oregon State

The Bruins recorded their highest score of the season this weekend.

No. 3 UCLA gymnastics (4-0, 3-0 Pac-12) defeated No. 20 Oregon State (1-2, 1-2) 197.900-197.450 on Saturday. The win comes one week after the Bruins posted their lowest score since the start of the 2018 season. The Beavers scored their highest total since 2017, but it was not enough to come out on top.

“I’m honestly really proud of the team,” said coach Valorie Kondos Field. “I’m most impressed that the athletes that made mistakes came back really well. That’s the sign of a great athlete, one that can have a team stick behind them and finish strong.”

Junior Kyla Ross scored a perfect 10 on the uneven bars for the second time in three weeks. The all-rounder also posted two 9.900s and a 9.850 to round out her weekend outing.

Ross stuck her first several skills on beam before wobbling and ending her chances of adding a second perfect 10 to her day.

“It started off as one of my best beam routines,” Ross said. “But when it got to my tricky series, I was a little bit upset that I wobbled but I still finished strong. I get excited sometimes when it’s going well, so I need to focus and keep calm throughout the routine in the future.”

The Bruins bested the Beavers in every event besides floor exercise, despite UCLA’s No. 1 national ranking in the event. Senior Katelyn Ohashi − who is ranked No. 1 individually on floor − only competed on balance beam on Saturday. She opted instead to take the week off the floor rather than compete for the fifth week in a row.

Assistant coach Jordyn Wieber said Ohashi has been training to complete a split double layout in her floor routine, which she has not attempted in competition since she scored a perfect 10 at the Collegiate Challenge on Jan. 12.

Wieber added that Ohashi feared that if she attempted to do her routine without a split element on Saturday, she would be confused when it came time to do the the split double layout.

“The split double layout adds an impressive factor and is really fun,” Wieber said. “We took a step back this week to dial in her technique a bit, because she was getting a little confused between the two and she wants to add the skill back into her routine next week. It is definitely a hard skill to do and it requires specific timing.”

Sophomore Nia Dennis posted the highest balance beam mark of her career in Corvallis, Oregon, recording a near-perfect 9.975 and beating her previous top score by .100 points. Dennis also recorded 9.925s on vault and floor.

“(Hitting my routines) gave me the confidence that I needed,” Dennis said. “I trained so hard to get where I am now, so I don’t need to hold anything back, I just need to do what I know I know how to do.”

Junior Felicia Hano fell early in her uneven bars routine, causing her to post a 9.200 for the event. However, Hano salvaged the meet and finished with a 9.950 on vault and a 9.900 on floor.

Kondos Field said she wants the team to work on consistency in the coming week before taking on No. 12 Washington in Seattle on Sunday.

“When quarterbacks throw a Hail Mary, they don’t just close their eyes, throw it and say a prayer – they actually throw the ball in a certain direction,” Kondos Field said. “We need to do that. We want to get consistent with our big, aggressive gymnastics.”

Women’s water polo overcomes LMU and breezes past Fresno State in doubleheader

The Bruins played two games, but battled a third opponent: the weather.

No. 3 UCLA women’s water polo (10-0) picked up two more wins over No. 15 Loyola Marymount (2-2) 9-8 and No. 14 Fresno State (2-8) 11-6 on a rainy and windy Saturday morning.

The Bruins barely escaped past the Lions in the first win of the day.

“We really deserved to lose that game,” said coach Adam Wright. “Maybe that’s what it’s going to take and like I said to the team after, maybe we have to learn the hard way. Until we learn to understand how important being consistent is in our everyday approach, it’s always going to be a step backward.”

The Lions jumped out to an early 2-0 lead, with the Bruins only scoring shortly before the end of the first quarter with a goal from senior center Sarah Sheldon. In the second, all four goals scored happened on the power play. UCLA scored three of them to knot the score at four-all at the half.

LMU had the lead at 8-6 with a little less than five minutes in the game, but allowed two unanswered goals by senior defenders Rachel Whitelegge and Kelsey Blacker for UCLA to tie it going into the final three minutes.

Whitelegge had two power play goals in the fourth quarter.

“Something we’ve been really trying to put emphasis on after last weekend was working on our 6-on-5,” Whitelegge said. “For me, a personal goal was to try and work my movement as much as I could and just try to get a better line of sight with my teammates for open balls.”

With less than one minute left in the game, UCLA got a steal when LMU was trying to respond to two unanswered goals it gave up. Sophomore goalkeeper Jahmea Bent surveyed the field and saw a wide open junior attacker Bronte Halligan to throw to. Still unguarded, Halligan filled the lane to be one-on-one with LMU goalkeeper Elizabeth Bradley and drilled what would be the difference-making goal with 35 seconds left on the clock.

Bent got the start in the cage and recorded nine saves while giving up eight goals. She said the weather conditions made the games a little harder but the team did their best to try and not let it affect them.

“It was definitely a challenge,” Bent said. “Luckily it’s been raining a lot recently, but still a challenge to get over how cold and rainy it was, but we had to fight through it and we did.”

The second game of the doubleheader featured junior attacker Maddie Musselman matching her career high in goals, as well as a season high in saves for senior goalkeeper Carlee Kapana.

Musselman piled up five goals for the second game in a row and for the sixth time in her career. Kapana tallied 12 saves, half of which were in the first quarter alone.

Fresno State only had the lead for three minutes and 19 seconds.

The Bulldogs had the first goal of the game from sophomore Sydney Coachman, but the Bruins responded with three goals of their own from Musselman and freshman attackers Bella Baia and Val Ayala.

Fresno State was able to pull the game within one goal two different times in the third quarter, but four unanswered goals by UCLA were enough to prevent a potential comeback.

Wright said the team will take these wins from the weekend, but their work is clearly cut out for them.

“Last night (against No. 5 Hawai’i) was a very positive step and then today was 10 back,” Wright said. “We know that we’re going to see everyone’s best game and the reality is that we didn’t do a good job of being ready today.”

Concert review: Hippo Campus gets crowd on its feet with upbeat setlist, impressive vocals

This post was updated Feb. 3 at 2:25 p.m.

Energy levels at the Bambi Tour were as high as the lead vocalist’s falsetto.

Indie rock band Hippo Campus released their second full-length album, “Bambi,” in September of last year and are currently on a six-month tour around the world. The five-member band took the stage at The Novo on Friday night to perform 18 songs, two of which are currently unreleased. Hippo Campus strutted, jammed and sang their way through the set in a vocally impressive show that will live on in many people’s memory – specifically in the hippocampus.

Before the main act, a duo named Now Now greeted the crowd. After the awkwardly short welcome, lead singer Cacie Dalager broke into song and dance – or what could plausibly be interpreted as dance. With the backtrack playing louder than her live vocals, Dalager stiffly bounced her way through some of the band’s catalogue. Occasionally she and some hired band members enacted cheesy choreographed dances together, further emphasizing the band’s uncomfortable stage presence and making the performance painful to watch.

But their set soon ended and Hippo Campus quickly transformed the bad vibes of a karaoke-level opener into a proper concert. Lead singer and guitarist Jake Luppen entered in a black jacket, a red scarf and a baseball cap as the band began playing the eponymous track from their latest album. Aided by shifting purple, blue and orange lights – a staple throughout the show – the band’s stage presence and wide-ranging vocals revived the crowd.

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Luppen donned a red scarf and a cap when the band took the stage. On several occasions, he stepped away from the microphone to walk the stage while playing the guitar. (Kanishka Mehra/Daily Bruin)

After two more songs, Luppen removed his scarf and began playing “Baseball,” a 2017 road-trip anthem with a catchy upbeat rhythm. The older song has more indie influences, with lyrics that feel reminiscent of the small-town midwest: “Where’d all our friends go/ We can dip if you’re ready.”

Another of the band’s older songs, “Warm Glow,” came a little later in the set. Featuring Luppen’s signature falsetto and a slow, heavy drum beat, the song was one of the standout moments of the show. As lead guitarist and vocalist Nathan Stocker sang the repeating verse of the song’s ending, Luppen layered over him with piercing falsetto vocals that proved the band could sing live without a backtrack – Now Now should have taken notes.

Hippo Campus then transitioned into “Monsoon,” a slow jam that elicited lit-up phones around the venue. The two calm songs set a serious tone, but Luppen quickly rebuilt an upbeat mood again with an announcement between songs.

“Lebron James is in the house tonight. His favorite song is ‘South,’” he said. “This one goes out to Lebron James.”

“South” captured the band’s more indie roots through growling vocals and distinct lines such as, “I walk the same way my father told me/ Back straight, chest out, just like a soldier.” They then moved into “Simple Season,” another chill beach song that also makes audiences bounce along, or in the case of one teenage boy, bang his head like he was at a rock concert.

The lights on stage then faded out until just the drummer, Whistler Allen, was illuminated in pink lighting. He performed an emotionally powerful love song unofficially titled “Chapstick,” a still-unreleased song that the band first performed at a concert in January. Allen, who normally sings backup vocals, took the lead for most of the newer number, which helped showcase the band’s overall vocal talent.

Following the song, Stocker sang another unreleased song unofficially known as “No Pomegranates,” while the stage was flooded in shades of green – the only time the lighting effects departed from the blue, purple, pink and orange theme. The change in color brought extra attention to the performance and created a refreshing new sight to accompany the song and enhance the experience.

The rock aspect of Hippo Campus’ indie-rock genre made its full appearance in the track, with Stocker singing “Take away everything/ I am just the one in search for songs to sing” over intense instrumentals. The upbeat, aggressive song brought a lively energy that starkly contrasted with the more relaxed nature of their indie songs. It also brought the mood to a nightly high even though most of the audience was unfamiliar with the song.

The band’s performance of “Bubbles” began softly with minimal instrumentals, but the middle of the song was flooded with chaotic energy and an abundance of loud noises – with the dueling musical sounds forming an apt representation of the concert as a whole. Needless to say, the head-banging teenager found his niche in the bridge.

The band played two more songs, “Suicide Saturday” and “Violet,” before wishing the audience goodnight and exiting the stage. However, the lights did not turn on, and attendees quickly picked up on their cue to chant “one more song” until Hippo Campus made its grand return for an encore. Though the pre-planned encore always tends to feel tasteless, they played it off well – Luppen and Stocker had even removed their jackets as if they weren’t planning on coming back out that night.

The final song, “Buttercup,” was the perfect song to end the night on, with its catchy rhythm and chorus leaving the audience with an earworm to hum on the way home. Though Hippo Campus rarely stopped to talk to the crowd, their song-packed set was diverse enough to reel the audience back in after the opening act left so much to be desired.