BRIDGET O’BRIEN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Outside
hitter Ella Harley (11) watches as setter
Erica Selsor leaps for the ball during last
night’s match vs. Oregon State.
By AJ Cadman
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
The UCLA women’s volleyball team always expects a tough
schedule to await them in the Pac-10 conference from such
powerhouses as Southern California and Arizona.
But with the Bruins entering Thursday with a perfect 4-0
conference record alongside the crosstown rival Trojans, No. 5 UCLA
(9-4 overall, 4-1 Pac-10) fell in a heartbreaking two-and-a-half
hour match to unranked Oregon State (11-3, 3-1) 4-15, 15-10, 7-15,
15-13, 16-14 before a stunned crowd of 481 at Pauley Pavilion.
“We let down too much and didn’t put them away when
we needed to,” said UCLA outside hitter Kristee Porter, who
had 30 kills on the match. “There really should not have been
a fifth game, but we didn’t play with the same intensity as
we do with bigger matches.”
The Bruins watched a four-match winning streak fizzle at the
hands of the Beavers. UCLA jumped on Oregon State in game one 7-0,
sparked by excellent net play from middle blocker Elisabeth Bachman
and capped with a service ace by defensive specialist Michelle
Quon. Head coach Andy Banachowski’s squad looked focused
early, proceeding to close out the game 15-4 and seemingly giving
the Bruins a false sense of security.
“We played as good of a first game as we could out
there,” Banachowski said. “We passed well, our offense
was working and we did all right in the second game, until we kind
of hit a wall.”
The Beavers rebounded from 11 errors and a -.059 hitting
percentage in game one, rallying behind Angie Shirley’s play
at the net. Her five kills and two blocks in the second game helped
Oregon State rally back from a 10-5 deficit after a Porter service
ace to win 15-10.
“We have played a lot of five-game matches this
season,” Shirley said. “We felt if we kept sideout and
moved our feet out there ““ as far as hustling and keeping
disciplined with our gameplan ““ we knew we would keep the
momentum on our side.”
UCLA came out of the intermission determined, displaying poise
and execution. Ashley Bowles’ five kills in game three
shifted the momentum back to the Bruins as a Lauren Fendrick kill
closed out the game 15-7 and put the Beavers on their heels.
Game four provided the turning point for Oregon State. After
falling behind 4-0, the Beavers knotted the score at 10-10 and
seemed to find the chink in UCLA’s armor.
After Bruin miscommunications and 22 kills from Oregon State in
game four ““ including eight from Gina Schmidt and seven from
Joscelyn Hannefor ““ the Beavers captured that game 15-13 and
set up the pivotal rally-scoring game five.
“We really only showed up for two games in the entire
match,” Porter said. “So far this season, we have
gotten ourselves up for matches against ranked teams and then have
let down and not played with the same type of energy against teams
we know we should beat.”
The seesaw battle of game five seemed to pit a war of who would
cave in first. Both teams continued to struggle offensively and
errors allowed the door to swing open for Oregon State.
The Beavers, who hit a meager .205 for the match and committed
39 errors to the Bruins’ 24, took the lead at 15-14 after
trailing 12-9.
Porter’s number was called repeatedly in the fifth game,
but UCLA was unable to hold onto the match. A Shirley crosscourt
kill was followed by Schmidt’s team-leading 23rd kill, which
turned out the lights and dropped the curtain on the Bruins.
“Maybe this will give us a wake up call,”
Banachowski said. “That we need to play with more intensity
and desire in every game.”