ELI GILL Junior middle blocker Angela
Eckmier spikes the ball against USC earlier this
season.
By Andrew Borders
Daily Bruin Reporter
The team across the net tonight in Malibu should bring reminders
of more prosperous times for the No. 8 UCLA women’s
volleyball team.
On Sept. 8 in Lincoln, Neb., then-No. 7 UCLA faced then-No. 12
Pepperdine. With a win, UCLA extended its perfect record to 5-0.
Since then, things haven’t been the same. The Bruins have
gone 6-5 and are unable to find a semblance of consistency in their
play.
“We played a solid match against them earlier this season,
and we need to get back to that level of play,” UCLA head
coach Andy Banachowski said. “They’re very young. They
have some freshmen starting, and they probably have some
inconsistency. We have to be solid and play defense and we’ll
be fine.”
Going into the last 10 games of the year, the Bruins (11-5) can
use their penultimate non-conference match to find some team
chemistry before heading into the back half of the Pac-10
season.
“We want our team to play well, our chemistry to improve
and our level of play to continue to improve,” junior outside
hitter Lauren Fendrick said.
No. 13 Pepperdine, which has a softer conference schedule than
the Bruins, is 15-3 overall and sports a perfect 9-0 record in West
Coast Conference play. Santa Clara, at No. 20, is the only other
WCC team ranked in the top 25 of the AVCA poll, whereas the Bruins
must contend with No. 3 Stanford, No. 4 Arizona and No. 5 USC.
Like the unbeaten season, senior setter Erika Selsor says the
Pepperdine match in September is a distant memory.
“I don’t think we exchanged game tapes with them, so
I don’t know how much we’re going to prepare for what
they do,” she said. “We played them earlier in the
season, and that was a long time ago, but we’ve seen them
before.
“Pepperdine is very good, they always are,” Selsor
added. “The match against them is usually an exciting one.
There’s definitely history behind it, and our teams love to
go at it. We’re not by any means overlooking them, because at
this point this match can mean a lot for our season.”
But the Bruins are slipping in this season’s conference
standings. After losing to Arizona last Friday night, UCLA fell
three-and-a-half games behind conference-leading Stanford. The
Bruins remain in fifth place, only a half match ahead of one of
this weekend’s opponents, unranked Washington State.