KEITH ENRIQUEZ/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Ashley
Bowles (left) watches as Elisabeth
Bachman goes up for the kill in the Bruins’ three-game
sweep of Cal at Pauley on Friday. Women’s Soccer
UCLA d. Cal 15-2, 15-8, 15-7
By AJ Cadman
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
In the world of athletics, offense may get the glory, but
defense wins the game.
Holding California to a dismal .073 hitting percentage, the No.
8 UCLA women’s volleyball team (14-5, 9-2 Pac-10) was able to
complete their sweep of the Bay Area schools with a 15-2, 15-8,
15-7 victory over the Golden Bears (9-9, 4-7 Pac-10) at Pauley
Pavilion on Friday night.
“We have been working on our defense in practice and
looking over our rotations,” said UCLA freshman outside
hitter Alyssa Rylander. “The coaches have been getting us to
play much scrappier.”
UCLA put the handcuffs on Golden Bear outside hitter Alicia
Perry, named Pac-10 Player of the Week two weeks ago. Perry only
managed to notch eight kills, none in the decisive third game, at a
.049 attacking clip.
“We came out and established control and maintained
control,” said UCLA head coach Andy Banachowski. “Cal
digs a lot of balls and they’re a strong attacking team. They
were just making a lot more hitting errors tonight than they did
last time.”
The win allows the Bruins to keep pace in the conference
standings, one game behind Southern Cal and Arizona.
“Now that the second half of the conference season is
here, we need to take one game at a time and play everyone with
intensity and fire,” Rylander said.
Bruin middle blocker Elisabeth Bachman posted a match-high 13
kills and .722 hitting average, marking the 16th time she has
accomplished the feat. Her performance against Cal was the 18th
time in UCLA history that a player has hit over .700 for the match
(on at least 10 attempts), the fifth such occasion for Bachman.
Junior outside hitter Ashley Bowles had 12 kills and a .455
attack percentage, while Rylander chipped in nine kills and 12 digs
for UCLA.
Leah Young provided the only bright spot for the Golden Bears
with 11 kills at a .391 hitting clip.
“It’s definitely way more exciting when you win a
game 15-1,” Bowles said. “Just knowing you shut the
other team down and didn’t even let them in the
game.”
Game one saw the Bruins duplicate the same domination against
Cal that they exhibited against Stanford in the opening game the
night before. The Bruins jumped out quickly to a 5-0 lead, marked
by three of the Golden Bears’ 28 match errors.
Banachowski’s substitution of Ella Harley early into the
match paid instant dividends as the redshirt freshman had three
kills and four block assists in game one.
Cal trailed 13-1 before calling a timeout. Cal middle blocker
Heather Diers posted back-to-back blocks at the net afterwards, but
the Golden Bears could not muster up a late rally and Rylander
closed out the game 15-2 with a crosscourt kill. UCLA hit .394 with
two errors in the opening game, while Cal had 11 errors and a .024
clip.
Game two showcased the UCLA attack amplifying its intensity. A
4-0 start was ignited by errant spikes from Perry and Young, giving
a boost to the Bruin service game.
After falling behind 7-2, it looked like the Golden Bears were
done hibernating. Perry followed a sideout with consecutive kills
to cut the deficit to three. But an Erika Selsor dump on the next
play stalled the Cal charge.
Perry and the Golden Bears would not go away quietly as Cal
managed to claw itself back to 10-8. But UCLA countered with a
suffocating defense and an ensuing five-point rally, culminating
with a Bachman putaway at the net to seal the 15-8 game two
victory.
Following intermission, game three began like the previous two
games, displaying the consistency that the Bruins had been
searching for in the first half of the conference season. After a
Bachman block to start, UCLA went on an 8-0 run, capped by another
Bachman block assist.
“Volleyball is a game of momentum, and teams catch
momentum,” Bowles said. “I think we caught it and they
came back a bit. I’d say we let down a little bit, but for
the most part, we did great at maintaining our level.”
With the Cal players shaking their heads in disbelief at a Bruin
squad that went five games last weekend in both matches in Arizona,
Young began the long battle back. Meeting Bowles for a block at the
net seemed to breathe life into the Golden Bears as they brought
the score to 9-5. But Bowles and outside hitter Lauren Hogan
increased UCLA’s lead to 13-5.
An ace serve by Hogan in the right corner caught the line and
had Cal questioning the line judge’s call, but it ended the
third game 15-7 and the Bruins matched their longest winning streak
of the season at four.
“I was really pleased that there wasn’t a let-down
after the big win over Stanford last night,” Banachowski
said. “I think we played hard, we played well, and we played
efficiently out there.”