ANGIE LEVINE Senior outside hitter Ashley
Bowles helped the Bruins sweep the Ducks on Thursday
night. UCLA d. Oregon 30-23, 30-18, 30-22
By Diamond Leung
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
It’s yet another confidence builder for the No. 12 UCLA
women’s volleyball team. And it’s yet another loss for
Oregon.
Same old, same old.
The Bruins (16-7, 10-5 Pac-10) swept the Ducks 30-23, 30-18,
30-22 Thursday night at Pauley Pavilion, serving Oregon off the
court.
“We were really going after the aces in practice,”
freshman middle blocker Heather Cullen said. “We worked on
our serving and it was awesome tonight.”
Senior outside hitter Ashley Bowles served up six of the 10
Bruin aces, tying a career high. She also double-doubled on the
night, tallying a match-high 14 kills to go along with 10 digs.
“Ashley has done really well this year with the
serve,” UCLA head coach Andy Banachowski said. “She put
a lot of spin on the ball and dropped the serve in nicely
tonight.”
The Bruins’ serving completely took the Ducks (9-18, 0-15)
out of their game. Every pass, set and spike was a struggle for
Oregon.
Meanwhile, the Ducks’ serving was anything but pretty.
That became apparent when one of their serves failed to reach the
net, striking a Duck in the back.
“We’ve struggled scoring points,” Oregon head
coach Carl Ferreira said. “We’re a little bit out of
sync.”
A little?
The Ducks were held to a horrific .021 hitting percentage.
Senior outside hitter Monique Tobbagi led her team with eight
kills, but also committed eight hitting errors.
“Oregon never had any rhythm. They couldn’t run
their offense because of our serve,” Banachowski said.
“We like that,” he added, winking.
The match got so out of hand that Banachowski was able to spare
his bench some playing time.
With senior outside hitter Kristee Porter still ineligible, the
Bruins are happy any time they have a chance to give everyone some
playing time.
“We’ve kind of acknowledged that this is the team
that we’re going to work with,” said junior outside
hitter Lauren Fendrick, who had 13 kills and 10 digs on the night.
“We had to get used to not having Kristee around.”
“I think they’ve adjusted well to life without
Porter,” Ferreira said.
Well, maybe only to the Ducks. The Bruins have struggled of late
““ to teams that have won at least once in the conference.
“We were looking at it like we have four more games to win
in the Pac-10, and we’re 10 wins away from the
championship,” Cullen said.
Now the Bruins are only nine wins away from a national title. A
championship is wishful thinking with Porter out, but at least UCLA
appears to have regained its confidence.
“¢bull; “¢bull; “¢bull;
UCLA faces visiting Oregon State (16-8, 9-6) tonight at
Pauley.
With reports from Andrew Borders, Daily Bruin Reporter.