ROSETTE GONZALEZ Michelle Quon sets the
ball for Ella Harley in a game against Arizona.
Women’s Volleyball PREVIEW vs. NCAA
Finals-First Round Saturday 7 p.m. Pauley Pavilion
www.uclabruins.com vs.
Michigan State or Milwakee NCAA Finals-Second
Round Sunday 3 p.m. Pauley Pavilion
By Andrew Borders
Daily Bruin Contributor
The No. 11 UCLA Bruins (22-7 overall) open NCAA Tournament play
Saturday at Pauley Pavilion against the Morgan State Honey Bears
(25-15).
The Bruins are on a three-match win streak, having swept both
matches in the Baylor Tournament. And despite late-season losses to
Arizona and Washington State that ended their hopes of a Pac-10
title, the Bruins have high expectations for their tournament
chances.
“I think our confidence and our momentum are very
high,” junior setter Erika Selsor said.
UCLA head coach Andy Banachowski agreed that his team is on the
upswing heading into the tournament.
“We’ll be real excited and we’ll do fine. I
think we’re feeling pretty good right now,” Banachowski
said. “In our last few matches, we’ve attacked very
well.”
But the Bears, who won the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference
tournament, do not enter the match with any fear of the host
Bruins.
“We’ve had several opponents that are bigger than us
and we’ve managed to come out of the matches, not always with
a victory, but we’ve managed to have higher blocking stats
than them,” Morgan State head coach Ramona Riley-Bozier
said.
Morgan State boasts 6-foot-1 sophomore outside hitter Java
Johnson, who led the MEAC this season in blocks with 105 total and
.93 per game and finished third in the MEAC in hitting percentage
at .261.
The Bruins counter Johnson with senior middle blocker Elisabeth
Bachman, who led the Pac-10 in blocks with 1.39 per game. Another
matchup to watch will be between the setters, with Selsor (who has
a conference-best 14.41 assists per game) battling sophomore
Tiffanie Sebree, who was second in the MEAC with 8.96 assists per
game.
Riley-Bozier knows what she and her Honey Bears will be up
against Saturday night.
“They have a very big team and I know Kristee Porter is an
extremely good athlete,” she said. “(Bachman) looks
really good, (Lauren Fendrick) looks good and (Selsor) does a very
good job of finding her go-to hitters.”
And Riley Bozier recognized the threat that Porter will pose to
her team. “She’s definitely going to be someone
we’re hopefully going to slow down a little bit.”
The coach has good reason to praise those Bruins, for Porter
leads the conference in kills with 5.84 per game and sophomore
outside hitter Fendrick tops the Pac-10 in service aces with .48
per game.
However, Riley-Bozier believes that Morgan State will have
another intangible on its side.
“A good portion of my team are from California. It’s
a very good atmosphere for us because we know that we’re
going to have a lot of support in the stands,” she said.
Should the Bruins defeat the Honey Bears, the winner of the 5
p.m. Wisconsin-Milwaukee/Michigan State game will face them Sunday
at 3 p.m. Both teams have standout players who helped their
respective teams into the field of 64.
The Michigan State Spartans (17-12) finished third in the Big 10
in hitting percentage and first in blocks largely due to the play
of 6-4 junior middle blocker Angela Morley, who averaged 1.29
blocks per game.
The Wisconsin-Milwaukee Panthers (23-4) won the Midwestern
Collegiate Conference and place either first or second in their
conference in hitting percentage, kills, assists, service aces,
blocks and digs, with junior outside hitter Laura Dallenbach
leading the league in kills and digs per game.
Should the Bruins win Saturday, their second round opponent is
still to be determined, but one thing the Bruins can be sure of is
a tough match in round one.